NWAfishbiologist

I think it depends on the location of the trees. If you place green cedar trees in an area that has no cover, fish will be on them pretty fast (within a couple of days).

Walleye take between 3 and 4 years to get to 18 inches in Beaver Lake. In a study in February 2014, the 3 year old walleye averaged 18 inches in size. In the newsletter, I just wanted to point out that there are quite a few fish over 18 inches that will be available this year. We began restocking walleye in the early 2000s and utilized the nursery pond and Charlie Craig Hatchery to stock the walleye. If you email me, I can send you the swepco results from this winter. Jon Stein AGFC Jonthan.Stein@agfc.ar.gov

Here is our newsletter for Fisheries in NWA. I took out all the pictures to get it down to size. If you want me to email it to you, email me at Jonathan.Stein@agfc.ar.gov District 1 January-March 2015 newsletter condensed.doc

We have been netting for walleye in Beaver Lake for the last couple of years and found that walleye are in great shape. We do our netting in the winter (January-March) before the spawn. We take weights and lengths on the walleye to get a condition factor (Wr or Relative Weight). If fish populations have a condition factor of 95 to 100, the fish are very fat and healthy. Condition of Beaver Lake walleye in 2014 was 98 and 2015 was 103. We only took weights on 20 walleye this winter due to our scales malfunctioning, but the ones we did weigh were very healthy. Keep in mind we collected these fish pre-spawn and many had eggs, which will lead to better relative weights. As you all know, the walleye caught this time of year are post-spawn and will not be as big as pre-spawn fish. Also, this is the time of year fish are skinny for a few reasons: 1. They just finished spawning and do not have the extra mass due to eggs. 2. The spawn can be stressful on fish that move long distances to spawn; as some walleye in Beaver Lake do when they run up the rivers. 3. Fish may be slimmer in May-June because forage species (threadfin shad, gizzard shad, etc.) have not spawned yet. There are not as many prey items available before the shad spawn and once shad do spawn walleye will be focusing more on shad for food. Also, keep in mind that many walleye harvested are males and they do not grow as large as the females. We have seen a male walleye that was 8 years old and was only 22" long. The males also are more active during the spawn (looking for females) and are prone to losing some weight at this time of year. We are very active in managing Beaver Lakes fish populations and have been sampling the walleye population since 2010 using gill nets. Based on our sampling and high condition factors in the last 2 samples, the walleye population looks to be in great health. We will continually monitor their population this winter. The big thing Beaver Lake needs to have good sportfish populations is HIGH WATER (If the lake is up during and after the spawn)!! Good inflows bring in nutrients that are vital for the forage species and good forage leads to bigger sportfish. Thanks for all your comments and good luck fishing this spring and summer. Jon Stein AGFC

We are working on the Beaver Lake Annual Report and should have it completed in a few weeks. I will post the report when we get it completed. We have been working nights collecting adult walleye for the spawning project mainly on the lower Kings River. We normally work the Kings River for a few nights and finish the project on the White River below Beaver Lake. This year we collected around 50 female walleye from the Kings and the hatchery produced over 5 million eggs from the project. The hatchery will raise walleye in hatchery ponds and stock fingerling walleye statewide. Walleye fingerlings will be stocked into Beaver Lake, White River below Beaver and Kings River as well. All the adult fish we collect from the project are stocked back into the Kings or where we caught them. We did catch a few trophy females during the project and one was almost 14 pounds. Hopefully, our stocking will produce some more trophy walleye in Beaver Lake and tributaries of Table Rock Lake. Jon Stein AGFC

We collect adult walleye from the Kings River just above Table Rock Lake. We normally put in at the Romp Hole Access and motor downstream to collect a few bigger fish for spawning. We also work on Beaver Tailwater around the Highway 62 bridge, if water levels are right. We normally need about 20-30 females and around 30 males to complete the spawning project. Fish are spawned on the bank, if the females are free flowing eggs. If the fish are not free flowing, we take them back to the hatchery and Charlie Craig Hatchery personnel monitor them 24 hours a day until they can be spawned. Once the fish have spawned, the hatchery takes the brood fish back to the Kings River and Beaver Tailwater. The eggs hatch and the hatchery raises them to fingerlings. The fingerlings are then stocked back into Arkansas waters, including Beaver Lake. We also collected our crappie broodstock for Beaver Lake Nursery Pond from Beaver Lake. We have a good number of fingerling crappie in the pond that will be released into Beaver Lake this fall. Thanks everyone for the good comments. Hope to see you on the water sometime. Jon Stein Arkansas Game and Fish Commission District Fisheries Supervisor 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758 479-631-6005

Here is our fisheries newsletter for District 1 in NWA. If you want to be put on an email list for the newsletter contact me at Jonathan.Stein@agfc.ar.gov. Good luck fishing. Jon Stein Arkansas Game and Fish Commission District Fisheries Supervisor 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758 479-631-6005 District 1 july 2014 newsletter ozark angler forum.doc

J-Doc, Bob Kidd has very good bluegill and redear fisheries. We have been sampling the lake for a couple of years with hoop nets and in 2012 we caught over 770 redear in our nets, which is an incredible catch rate. Some of the redear were over 12 inches long. The largemouth bass population on Bob Kidd is very healthy and there are lots of smaller bass, which is what we want. The smaller bass keep the bluegill and redear numbers in check and the ones that survive being eaten grow very fast. We also caught quite a few bluegill in Bob Kidd during our sampling. We will be sampling this summer and fall to evaluate channel catfish, bluegill, redear and crappie fisheries in many of the smaller lakes in NWA. We have begun a channel catfish study on 8 of the local smaller lakes and will continually monitor the bluegill, redear and crappie fisheries as well. Jon Stein

Feathers and Fins, We have also noticed an increase in bigger walleye in our winter gill net sampling. We use multi-panel gill nets to sample walleye, white bass, hybrids and striped bass in the winter months and our catches of walleye have increased each year. The high water years in 2008 and 2011 produced 2 huge year classes of walleye and the 2008 year class ranges from 18-23".

TrophyFishR and all Sorry it took so long to respond, we are very busy in the spring. We have 4 lakes in NWA that we stock with catchable channel catfish (about 3/4 pound to 1 pound apiece) in April-June and again in September. These are put and take fisheries and you have good chances of catching fish from the bank. The lakes are Lake Bentonville, Lake Springdale, Lake Atalanta and Murphy Park Pond. We also have fishing docks on Bob Kidd Lake, Crystal Lake and Lake Elmdale and these lakes have good numbers of bluegill and other sunfish. We are in the process of replacing the old docks at Crystal Lake and Elmdale this spring. Lake Bentonville also has at least 2 fishing docks and has bluegill and the catchable channel catfish. If you have any further, questions let me know Jon Stein Fish Biologist Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758 phone 479-631-6005

Hello everyone. I am a fisheries biologist for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and just found out that SWEPCO is going to be pulling transmission lines on a cove of the lake next Tuesday to Friday (2-18 through 2-21, 2014). A contractor for SWEPCO will be closing a cove of the lake to boating and fishing on those dates. The cove is on the north end of the lake and runs to the northeast. This is the cove that is just to the northwest of the power plant. The contractor is going to place a buoy line at the mouth of the cove. If anyone has any questions, post back or give me a call 479-640-6422. Thank you. Jon Stein Fish Management Biologist Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758

We do not fertilze Crystal Lake because it is a very productive lake. Some of the smaller lakes in NWA experienced filamentous algae problems this spring. We will keep an eye on them and may need to do some vegetation control.

The Beaver Lake Nursery Pond is 28 acres and is located near Blackburn Creek. The pond is used to stock fish into Beaver Lake and we have used it with very good success for the past 25 years. The previous Fish Biologist (Ralph Fourt) and my current supervisor Ron Moore worked very hard in the 90s to get smallmouth bass established in Beaver Lake and this was accomplished with the Nursery Pond. We have used the pond to stock black crappie, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, redear sunfish, and walleye. I left the largemouth bass numbers off the list because we have not estimated the numbers yet. Smallmouth bass 1,246,033 Crappie 2,762,017 Redear Sunfish 2,138,964 Walleye 198,826 Blue catfish 120,000 Largemouth bass We use the nursery pond every year and here is how it works. We fill the pond in March or April and obtain adult broodstock from Beaver Lake or other sources. With the smallmouth bass, Ron obtained the fish from Bull Shoals Lake. This year we collected 575 adult largemouth bass from a NWA Cast Masters Tournament and the FLW Tournament on Beaver Lake. Once the pond is filled and adult fish are stocked into the pond, we enhance pond productivity by adding alfalfa pellets and old hay. The alfalfa pellets and hay increase zooplankton production, which is what small newly hatched fry eat. For smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, and walleye we hold the fish in the pond until they reach an average size of 2 inches (1.5 inches for walleye). We then open the gate that drains the pond and both the adult and fingerling fish are released into the lake. The reason we don’t let the fish get any bigger is because once they reach about 2 inches they begin to eat each other. If we held them until the fall we would stock a much larger fish, but there could only be a couple of hundred left in the pond. For Crappie and Redear Sunfish we hold them over the summer and stock them in the fall. These species do not cannibalize each other as much as do largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and walleye. We do not use the Nursery Pond to stock many walleye or striped bass, because we have better success having them raised at the Charlie Craig Hatchery in Centerton (walleye) and at the Andrew Hulsey Hatchery in Hot Springs (striped bass). Also, thanks for all the good comments on our managment of Beaver Lake. We do work hard to ensure good fishing, but keep in mind that the Beaver Lake fishery thrives during and after high water years. The high water increases productivity of many of the forage species and this leads to incredible numbers of sportfish. Beaver Lake experienced high water in 2008, 2011 and it looks like it will have another one this year. Fishing should be very good this summer. Good Luck. Jon Stein Fish Managment Biologist Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758 479-631-6005 jestein@agfc.state.ar.us

We have placed fish attractors in Lake Elmdale and Crystal Lake the last couple of years. I have attached some maps of the GPS coordinates to these fish habitat structures. We also have some GPS coordinates for fish habitat on Bob Kidd Lake that I will get updated soon. Many of the lakes in NWA have lots of largemouth bass. We collected around 300 largemouth bass in 1 hour of electrofishing on Crystal Lake this spring. Jon Stein Fish Managment Biologist Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 2805 West Oak Rogers, AR 72758 479-631-6005 jestein@agfc.state.ar.us

We held the informational meeting and had 1 person show up. I am compiling the comments we received on our website about the regulation change. If we don't have much opposition to removing the Beaver Lake Spotted Bass 12 inch minimum length limit, we will remove it on January 1, 2014. We will continue to study the population on Beaver Lake and will evaluate the regulation change a few years after implementation. On a side note, we harvested the Beaver Lake Nursery Pond today and stocked thousands of fingerling largemouth bass into Beaver Lake. I have attached some pictures of the sizes of largemouth we stocked in the lake. A few largemouth were 3 inches long and they have been eating the smaller bass in the pond. We release the pond when the fingerling bass average 2 inches long. We do not have an estimate on numbers at this time, but will in the next couple of weeks. If anyone has any questions, give me a call or email. Jon Stein Fish Management Biologist Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 2805 West Oak Street Rogers, AR 72758 479-631-6005 jestein@agfc.state.ar.us