Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge

Catahoula Lake is a large, poorly drained depression fed by the Little River and subject to backflooding. It was named a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on June 18, 1991. The Ramsar sheet calls it the most important inland wetland for waterbirds in Louisiana, with peak counts over 400,000 birds. Sources differ on the name: the LSU AgCenter traces Catahoula to the Choctaw word Okkattahoula, 'beautiful clear water,' while Wikipedia calls it a Tensas word for 'big, clear lake.'

Each summer the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Army Corps of Engineers lower the lake under a Tri-Party Agreement, to between 27.0 and 27.5 feet above sea level, so millet and sprangletop grow on the exposed mud. The lake is re-flooded by mid-November, and hundreds of thousands of ducks and shorebirds are regularly counted there in early November. The adjoining refuge, set up in 1958 as a wintering area for migratory waterfowl, covers about 25,000 acres, mostly lowland hardwood forest flooded by backwater from the Ouachita, Black and Red Rivers, in a Headquarters Unit and a Bushley Bayou Unit.

Visitors hunt, fish, photograph and watch wildlife, and there is an auto tour; the refuge office is at 210 Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge Road in Jonesville. The refuge is weighing a change that would limit two miles of Big Bend Road to ATVs from fall or winter 2026-27, so ask before taking a truck. Fall and winter are the waterfowl months, and seasonal hunts affect access, so call (318) 992-5261 first.