|
 HOT
SPRINGS - More stocking of Lake Ouachita with smallmouth bass of
Tennessee lake parentage is coming up, said fisheries biologist Brett
Hobbs of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Hobbs told the agency’s commissioners at their May meeting, “We started
this project (in 1996) with brood stock from four streams in the
Ouachita Mountains - Caddo River, Big Mazarn Creek, Saline River and
Ouachita River. Has it been successful? It’s been sporadic.”
Hobbs said the 2004 stocking was with smallmouth fingerlings from brood
stock obtained from Tennessee and maintained ay the Andrew Hulsey State
Fish Hatchery near Hot Springs. In 2004, 28,500 fingerlings of this
Tennessee strain went into the lower part of Lake Ouachita.
What’s the difference in Ouachita Mountain smallmouth bass and Tennessee
smallmouth bass?
It’s not the states, it’s stream fish versus lake fish. The Tennessee
stock came from Norris and Wautauga lakes in east Tennessee, also a
mountainous area. The lake-oriented fish with Tennessee backgrounds
appear to be more suitable for Lake Ouachita, he said.
In addition to the fingerlings last year, several hundred
Tennessee-strain smallmouth in 6- to 12-inch lengths were put into
Ouachita in the summer of 2003.
The pace of stocking young smallmouth bass into Lake Ouachita will be
stepped up, according to fisheries chief Mike Gibson. He said, “We
intend to continue a five-year stocking plan using the Tennessee-strain
smallmouth bass at a targeted 100,000 per year.”
The AGFC has had assistance from members of the Arkansas Black Bass
Coalition in distributing the young smallmouth in many areas of the
lower lake.
Hobbs told the commissioners that both Texas and Oklahoma have had
success in building lake populations of smallmouth bass with
Tennessee-strain brood stock. Lake Texoma on the Red River on the
Texas-Oklahoma border has been acclaimed in national outdoor
publications for its new smallmouth fishery. Recently, an Oklahoma
angler caught a state record 8-pound, 1-ounce smallmouth from Holway
Lake in northeastern Oklahoma, another of the Tennessee-strain projects.
 The
AGFC received the fish from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency as
an ongoing cooperation between the two agencies, according to the AGFC's
warmwater hatchery coordinator Don Brader in an earlier report to
commissioners. "In years of poor fish production, the Commission has
received thousands of various fish species from TWRA, who have in turn
received various species from the AGFC when their Tennessee hatcheries
have failed to produce adequate numbers of young fish," Brader said.
Arkansas has been successful in other smallmouth bass introductions to
large lakes.
Greers Ferry Lake in north-central Arkansas has a good smallmouth
population as a result of stocking work that began in the 1980s. Beaver
Lake in northwest Arkansas is coming on strong with its smallmouth as a
result of stockings that utilized brood stock from Bull Shoals Lake and
other sources in Beaver’s nursery pond to produce large numbers of
fingerlings over several years.
Smallmouth bass were native in the rivers forming all of these lakes -
Ouachita River for Lake Ouachita, Little Red River for Greers Ferry Lake
and White River for Bull Shoals Lake and Beaver Lake - before dams were
built. |
