LITTLE ROCK — Two angler groups recently joined with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to improve the fishing at two of the state’s most popular lakes. Volunteers with the Arkansas Black Bass Coalition and members of the Lake Chicot Crappie Federation teamed up with their local fisheries biologists to add impressive amounts of fish habitat to lakes in central and Southeast Arkansas.
According to Brett Hobbs, fisheries supervisor at the AGFC’s Hot Springs Office, roughly 25 volunteers made up of the ABBC and other interested Lake Ouachita anglers, provided the manpower to cut cedar trees from the shore of Lake Ouachita and create multiple new fish attractor sites in the Rabbittail area of the lake. The AGFC obtained a special permit from the Corps of Engineers to cut the trees and sink them. Hobbs says this area of the lake has a considerable amount of aquatic vegetation shallower than 22 feet deep. The trees were placed in deep water (20 to 45 feet deep) to provide prime fish habitat during summer and winter when fish have moved offshore.
The Lake Chicot Crappie Federation also helped with a habitat project in southeast Arkansas at Lake Chicot. Biologists gathered materials for 165 artificial habitat structures and met with volunteers from the club, who helped assemble the structures and joined the AGFC placing them from an AGFC habitat barge. Sixteen new offshore fish attractor sites were created, each consisting of 10 to 13 PVC trees or commercially prepared Mossback Trophy Trees.
