Trout fishing opportunities expanded in southeast Oklahoma

Not only has the trout fishing been improved in southeast Oklahoma, there is also a brand new area to try your luck. Fisheries personnel with the Wildlife Department told the Wildlife Conservation Commission at their November meeting about ¾ of a mile of trout stream which has been added or improved at the Lower Mountain Fork River.

            With bulldozers, backhoes and a good deal of imagination, streams biologists created a brand new ¼-mile trout stream, dubbed Lost Creek. Water was diverted into an ancient stream channel through dense woods and boulders creating a unique area for anglers to try to fool wary trout.

            A separate ½-mile stretch of the Lower Mountain Fork River, known as the Evening Hole, once had a poor reputation among trout anglers. The warm, slow-moving, muddy water in the area was not favored by the rainbow and brown trout stocked by the Wildlife Department.

However, streams biologists saw the potential in the area and felt if they could narrow the channel and provide more habitat, the trout, followed by trout anglers, would quickly begin using the area. Biologists used 600 dump truck loads of gravel to narrow the river channel, causing the water to remain cooler and move through the Evening Hole faster. With the addition of large rocks, logs and islands, fisheries personnel transformed once sub-par trout habitat into a first class fishing area.

            The Commission voted to establish special trout fishing regulations on the Evening Hole and Lost Creek areas. Upon gubernatorial approval, anglers must use only artificial lures with barbless hooks and may harvest only one rainbow trout and one brown trout 20-inches or longer per day. When the proposed regulations were opened to public input recently, the Department received overwhelming support of the new regulations which are geared toward providing a high quality trout fishery.

            In other business, the Commission heard a report on the progress of the Quail Habitat Restoration Initiative. Through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, $500,000 in cost-share and incentive payments is available to landowners willing to restore and manage quail habitat this year.

            “This is a departure from the approach we have used in the past to improve quail habitat. In years past, we have waited for landowners to come to us, but with this new initiative we are going to them. We have identified five different areas of the state where we feel like we can get the most bang for our buck when it comes to quail habitat,” said Mike Sams, private lands biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Also at the meeting, the Commission heard about an innovative concept to turn a commodity that is typically thrown away by anglers into dollars that can be used for conservation. The idea involves collecting, processing and selling paddlefish eggs as caviar on the international market.

Historically, caviar has come from sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, however that fishery has essentially collapsed and will not be able to produce sturgeon caviar for at least 25 years. Caviar made from paddlefish eggs has proven to be a comparable, if not equal, substitute for sturgeon caviar. As the supply of caviar has decreased, the demand, and price, for a caviar substitute has increased.

Paddlefish are found in several river drainages in the state, but the population in the Grand River system has been studied for the past 25 years. Each spring thousands of paddlefish move upstream to spawn. This fishery, arguably the healthiest paddlefish population in the United States, draws anglers from across the state and the nation for the chance to reel in one of the huge fish, which can exceed 100 pounds.

Many of these anglers choose to clean their fish and take home the meat, however, the eggs are often discarded. The Wildlife Department proposed to the Commission that the eggs be voluntarily collected from sport anglers so they could be sold to fund paddlefish research, management and law enforcement. Similar operations have been in place in Montana and North Dakota since 1989.

After discussion the Commission voted to finance a feasibility study and business plan for the project to determine if the proposal would be financially feasible in Oklahoma.

In other business, Commissioners received a report from Finley and Cook, PLLC, the company that performed the Department’s 2006 annual financial audit. According to Traci Keel with Finley and Cook, the audit went smoothly and no irregularities were found. According to Keel, the Wildlife Department demonstrated “excellent internal control” over their financial matters.

         Also at the November meeting, the actuarial valuation report for the Wildlife Retirement Plan was presented by the Actuarial firm Buck Consultants. The plan remains well funded at over 80 percent, according to the report. The Commission voted to increase the Department’s annual retirement contribution by $500,000 to meet the required annual contributions and to insure a solid and well funded retirement plan.

         The Wildlife Conservation Commission is the eight-member governing board of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. The Wildlife Commission establishes state hunting and fishing regulations, sets policy for the Wildlife Department, and indirectly oversees all state fish and wildlife conservation activities. Commission members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate.

         The next scheduled Commission meeting is December 4 at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation headquarters (auditorium), at the southwest corner of 18th and North Lincoln, Oklahoma City at 9:00 a.m.

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