Do away with 30,000 dams?

[Quillback]

"The biggest lake, Balboa, also has a very healthy population of spotted bass, the biggest lake, Balboa, also has a very healthy population of spotted bass."

 

What?  You are now a spotted bass guy?  You know there are more than a few of those things in Table Rock right?  😀 

What's going on in BV in a nutshell is that it is not primarily a retirement community anymore.  I certainly don't like the direction it is going either.  POA is spending money like drunken sailors, just saw that they want to spend a couple million on the driving range, putting in a bar and some sort of ridiculously expensive putting green.  

[tjm]

Bella Vista has not been primarily a retirement community for decades, 53.6% of the population is 54 or younger and 22.3% under the age of 24. It hasn't been a village for 17 years, truly, I am amazed that the POA still has the power that it has. Those young parents and school kids  likely don't get much use out of the golf pastures or the lakes either. 

You guys are essentially paying for two town governments.

I long for the old days before Cooper slipped in and bought up all those small farm and timber lands so cheap, when Bella Vista was just a resort owned by Old Man  Kieth. But times change. The population of all of Benton County was less then than the population of Bella Vista now.

[bfishn]

14 hours ago, tjm said:

...I long for the old days before Cooper slipped in and bought up all those small farm and timber lands so cheap, when Bella Vista was just a resort owned by Old Man Keith...

Mr Keith built the trout farm that I ran in the '90s, also the one in Cave Springs. He spent his final years in a modest brick home overlooking the place from trailer hill. He must have been watching me, because when I  drained and cleaned the big pond back to gravel for the first time in ~40 years, his wife called and said he wanted to see me, please come over. He said he was so pleased to see someone fixing the place up, as it had declined several times from previous managers. I had so many questions to ask him, particularly on the what and where of buried piping. He got up and pulled the hardback trout hatchery manual that he had used to build it off the shelf, signed the liner, handed it to me and said thank you. I'll never forget that. He passed a few months later. A Truly Great Man.

[BilletHead]

18 minutes ago, bfishn said:

Mr Keith built the trout farm that I ran in the '90s, also the one in Cave Springs. He spent his final years in a modest brick home overlooking the place from trailer hill. He must have been watching me, because when I  drained and cleaned the big pond back to gravel for the first time in ~40 years, his wife called and said he wanted to see me, please come over. He said he was so pleased to see someone fixing the place up, as it had declined several times from the managers du jour. I had so many questions to ask him, particularly on the what and where of buried piping. He got up and pulled the hardback trout hatchery manual that he had used to build it off the shelf, signed the liner, handed it to me and said, thank you. I'll never forget that. He passed a few months later. A Truly Great Man.

          Awesome and thanks for sharing that.

[tjm]

@bfishnBought a few trout dinners from the Cave Springs hatchery back in the '60s. Were the trout in the creek there escapees or stocked?

Kieth also had  a "Dude Ranch" where the present day Walmart is at the state line and my kid brother led trail rides for him. When Cooper was recruiting the first crop of retirees,  he gave away "Ozark vacations" at big business conventions and used Kieth's resort and dude ranch as entertainment between tours of The Village with his salesmen.

[bfishn]

10 hours ago, tjm said:

@bfishnBought a few trout dinners from the Cave Springs hatchery back in the '60s. Were the trout in the creek there escapees or stocked?

Kieth also had  a "Dude Ranch" where the present day Walmart is at the state line and my kid brother led trail rides for him. When Cooper was recruiting the first crop of retirees,  he gave away "Ozark vacations" at big business conventions and used Kieth's resort and dude ranch as entertainment between tours of The Village with his salesmen.

Escapees, but they rarely lasted long between the fishermen and herons. Both places took on 20-30 times normal inflow during floods. Surface runoff carried leaves that plugged the screens. I just put on my body rubber and cleaned end to end and back until it was running clean and losses were few. Then I went to do a catering gig at Mulberry and the place got 6" one night. Don't know if the wife really tried or not, but at least 1,500 1 - 1.5 lbers escaped downstream. I heard of a catch at Noel shortly after, probably mine.

[Champ188]

21 hours ago, Quillback said:

"The biggest lake, Balboa, also has a very healthy population of spotted bass, the biggest lake, Balboa, also has a very healthy population of spotted bass."

 

What?  You are now a spotted bass guy?  You know there are more than a few of those things in Table Rock right?  😀 

What's going on in BV in a nutshell is that it is not primarily a retirement community anymore.  I certainly don't like the direction it is going either.  POA is spending money like drunken sailors, just saw that they want to spend a couple million on the driving range, putting in a bar and some sort of ridiculously expensive putting green.  

I've always been a big fan of spots, especially the big ones that roam the lower ends of TR and Beaver lakes. I'm also a fan of eating a mess of them when they are overly populated, as they used to be in the big lake in Hot Springs Village. Just can't bring myself to whack the sides off a 15-inch or bigger spot ... as for some reason, that remains the size limit in TR. Spots seem far more prolific than LM to me, and in some cases I've read they will beat down the LM population by monopolizing the forage supply. 

[Champ188]

14 hours ago, tjm said:

Bella Vista has not been primarily a retirement community for decades, 53.6% of the population is 54 or younger and 22.3% under the age of 24. It hasn't been a village for 17 years, truly, I am amazed that the POA still has the power that it has. Those young parents and school kids  likely don't get much use out of the golf pastures or the lakes either. 

You guys are essentially paying for two town governments.

I long for the old days before Cooper slipped in and bought up all those small farm and timber lands so cheap, when Bella Vista was just a resort owned by Old Man  Kieth. But times change. The population of all of Benton County was less then than the population of Bella Vista now.

It was far more primarily retirement when we moved here in 2001 than now. I'm done giving them money to whiz away. They kicked ol' Papa Mike outta his spot at the Kingswood/Berksdale complex and are putting in a POA-owned and operated BBQ place. Huh? We already have Bubba's BBQ at the state line and Smokin' Joe's to the south. And word is, this new BBQ will be oven cooked and not even smoked. Typical POA ... stop short of doing things right because we can't afford it if we are gonna keep paying management ridiculous salaries and bonuses. 

Done here. Already pre-shopping for homes in Hot Springs Village. Turns out, you CAN go back home.