Tagged rainbow moves from Beaver Tailwater to Roaring River

[Quillback]

From Beaver Tailwater to Roaring River: 
A Rainbow Trout's Journey 

Back in August, the Trout Management Program and the Norfork National Fish Hatchery stocked a few "celebrity" fish from the display raceway into Beaver Tailwater (see that social media post here). We tagged them, hoped for the best, and waited.

Well, the results are in, and one particular Rainbow Trout had some serious wanderlust!

Arkansas angler Colt Smith recently reeled in a tagged beauty at Roaring River State Park. After a bit of detective work with the Missouri Department of Conservation, the tag was mailed to AGFC. The data doesn't lie: this fish pulled off a 25–30 mile trek down the White River and up into Roaring River in just six months!

The Tale of the Tape:

•      August 22: 27 inches, ~10.1 lbs
•      March 8: 28 inches, ~7 lbs (leaner, meaner, and clearly a marathon swimmer).

While trout are known to roam, this is our first-ever confirmed traveler between Beaver Tailwater and Roaring River. Safe to say, this fish really went the extra mile!

Angler Colt Smith with his tagged Rainbow Trout. Photo credit Tamara Smith


The general path from Beaver Tailwater to Roaring River State Park

[snagged in outlet 3]

That’s cool!!   

[Devan S.]

Its really quiet the feat. Going from the tailwaters down river to say roaring river arm isn't all the surprising even with the drought we've been in there's plenty of water with generation to get started down river. 

What is impressive is the upstream travel up roaring river. With the drought roaring river has been really low and there hasn't been any sustained high water short of the 4-5 days right before the fish was caught.