|
 HOT
SPRINGS – The May issue of Field & Stream magazine lauds Lake
Ouachita in west-central Arkansas as one of the top spots for bass
fishing.
The article lists the lake No. 28 among the top 35 freshwater fisheries
in the country for “unbelievable bass fishing.”
The short note on Lake Ouachita says, “Already the ‘Striper Capital of
the World,’ Ouachita could soon become a great smallmouth fishery. Lake
managers have planted almost 100,000 Tennessee reservoir-strain smallies
in the lake and plan to stock up to 100,000 more each year for the next
four years.”
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently released 227,000
smallmouth fingerlings into Lake Ouachita to improve the fishery for
these top-notch fighters. This is more than twice the AGFC’s annual
target.
“Our goal is to stock 100,000 or more (smallmouth) fingerlings for five
years,” said Stuart Wooldridge, district fisheries biologist in Hot
Springs. “We’re very excited about the incredible progress at the
hatchery and look forward to seeing these results pay off for anglers.
“The first few years, we did not reach the 100,000 fingerling goal,
primarily because the brood fish were young and had to adjust to the
ponds, but now they are producing well.”
Members of the Arkansas Black Bass Coalition used their boats to
distribute the fingerlings on the eastern end of the lake.
 The
stocking is part of a program to establish smallmouth bass in Lake
Ouachita. Local anglers asked the AGFC to consider adding smallmouth to
the lake in 1996. The fish are native to the Ouachita River, but the
species does not offer a real fishing opportunity in the lake’s main
body.
“We chose Tennessee-strain smallmouth for these stockings because of the
incredible success other states had with them,” Wooldridge said. “Texas
introduced this strain in Lake Texoma during the early 1990s, and many
anglers were catching 5- and 6-pound smallmouth in less than a decade.”
The Arkansas state-record smallmouth stands at 7 pounds, 5 ounces.
The AGFC plans to conduct surveys this fall to evaluate the program’s
success. Smallmouth bass are one of the most popular sport fish among
Arkansas anglers, despite their limited numbers in reservoirs. They are
typically found in warmwater streams and small rivers flowing through
the mountainous regions of the state. |
