John's Journal...
Entry 179,
Day 2
GILES ISLAND
The History of Giles Island
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Jimmy Riley is the lodge manager and hunt
master for Giles Island, an island in the Mississippi River near Natchez,
Mississippi, and Ferriday, Louisiana. He constantly learns more and more
about the bucks on this island each season, and his management program
has proven success.
Question: How big is Giles Island?
Answer: 9400 acres.
Question: Of what plantation was it a part?
Answer: Giles Plantation, but actually it was Clairmont Plantation before
that. There's an antebellum home across the river on the bluff called
Clairmont Plantation that went with those people's property. Since then,
there was a landowner for this part of the plantation -- the island itself
-- named Giles, and we named it Giles Island.
Question:
How much of the island floods?
Answer: You can count on half of it going underwater every year. It has
the Mississippi River on the east side, and the Old Mississippi River
on the other three sides.
Question: When the river floods, the deer leave, right?
Answer: When the river gets to a certain high stage, which doesn't occur
but every four or five years, some deer will leave. Very rarely will all
the deer leave. That's a flood that'll only happen every 25 years or so.
Question: The sheriff told me that two years ago they
all left but all came back.
Answer: That was in the '97 or '98 flood, but they all came back. We never
missed a lick. We had one of the best hunting seasons the following year.
Question:
Are your deer landlocked?
Answer: No, the deer will swim the Mississippi River if they take a notion
to -- if things aren't right -- they'll leave. There is one piece of ground
on the north side that's dry where they can leave. But they don't want
to leave. We make it nice for them over here. This is where the food is.
The pressure isn't too heavy to make them leave.
Question: One of the big advantages is that in the spring
there's a lot of soybeans and corn on Giles Island.
Answer: If the flood gets high enough so that the deer leave, they'll
have food on the other side too, including farmlands with grain, corn
and soybeans. They know where home is, and they always come back.
To learn more about Giles Island, write 461 Old River
Boat Camp Road, Ferriday, LA 71334, call (877) 944-5374, or visit www.gilesisland.com.
TOMORROW: PLANTING ON GILES ISLAND
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