ROGERS - Beaver Lake has been known as a largemouth and Kentucky bass hotspot for years, but the success of the smallmouth in this reservoir is one of Arkansas’ great fisheries stories of the past decade.

Through years of intensive stocking programs, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has brought the smallmouth back to this premier fishing destination. District Fisheries Biologist Ralph Fourt was instrumental in reestablishing smallmouth on the reservoir. Fourt used to comment, “If I can get smallmouth bass going in Beaver Lake, I’ll consider my career a success.”

Judging by the recent tournaments at Beaver, Ralph’s career is more than success, it’s the stuff from which legends are made. In April’s FLW tournament held on Beaver Lake, many high-quality smallmouth bass were brought to the scales. The smallmouth also has been the star of several local tournament weigh-ins.

Before Beaver Lake was formed, the White River in northwest Arkansas was one of the finest smallmouth fisheries in the state, but the cold water downstream of the dam and the large, deep waters of the lake were not friendly to the native smallmouth, which all but disappeared from the water system.

Fourt developed a plan to reintroduce smallmouth to the system and bring back a third dimension to bass anglers visiting the lake. Biologists collected smallmouth bass from other lakes and allowed them to spawn in the newly constructed Beaver Lake Nursery Pond. The resulting fingerlings were then allowed to grow to a length of two inches before releasing them directly into the lake.

Establishing a new species of fish in an already existing fish population is a difficult task, but by using the nursery pond, large numbers of fingerling-size bass could be stocked to give smallmouth a chance to survive and begin reproducing on their own. It took four years of intensive stocking before biologists began to see natural reproduction of the smallmouth in Beaver Lake. Intensive smallmouth stockings continued for three additional years for a total of seven years of nursery-pond stockings.

Thriving populations of largemouth and spotted bass have made the lake a popular destination for bass anglers and tournament organizers. In fact, Beaver is considered by some as the birthplace of modern bass tournaments since Ray Scott, founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, held the first large bass tournament on the lake in 1967. Now, because of one man’s dream and dedication, the smallmouth in Beaver Lake add another dimension for sportfishermen on this famous fishery