SIBLEY — Natchez resident Glenn Wisner fishes Gilliard Lake at least three times a month when it’s open for fishing.

But he doesn’t always get the chance to do it with his daughter, Kayla.

With the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge closing down fishing on Gilliard Lake this coming Friday, Wisner decided Saturday morning would be a good time to get out on the water with Kayla.

“I try to bring her down here as much as she can go,” he said. “Usually, she only ends up coming with me about three to four times a year. As she gets older, she’ll be able to come with me more, I hope.”

Kayla Wisner said she hadn’t caught anything yet, but was hoping to keep up with her dad, who caught a white perch and a bream.

“It was kind of boring last time, because I didn’t catch anything,” said Kayla Wisner, 11.

“He’s trying to get me as close to the tree as he can. I enjoy it a lot.”

The Wisners were two of a small handful of fishers that made their way to Gilliard Lake Saturday. Burt Smith, another visiting fisherman, said the lake is good for fishing depending on the water level of the Mississippi River, which feeds into Gilliard Lake.

“If it’s up too high, you can’t even get up in here,” Burt Smith said. “When the river’s low, and the water’s not but three feet, that’s when it’s good.”

It’s also better to fish the lake when it’s cooler outside, Smith said.

“It’s so shallow, the hotter it gets, everything becomes stagnant,” he said. “I remember six or seven years ago the water level got down about to where you could walk across it.”

Burt Smith said it would be nice to fish during the cooler months, but the refuge doesn’t open fishing back up on the lake until Feb. 1. Refuge volunteer Pete Smith said those dates correlate with hunting seasons.

“Muzzle loader season starts on (Nov.) 20, and people are out there shooting,” Pete Smith said. “It could get dangerous for people down there with deer hunting. They could miss and hit someone on the lake.

“It’s a safety thing. Not everyone is a safe hunter.”

It isn’t just fishers that have come around the refuge recently. Burt Smith said he met a couple from England two weeks ago.

“They were touring the various game reserves in the South,” he said. “They had never been to this country before, and they were taking pictures.”