New rainbow regs on the Beaver tailwater should help improve the fishery. Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

For years, the stretch of the White River below Carroll County's Beaver Dam has been a steady but unspectacular tailwater trout fishery. Regardless of how many rainbows the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission poured into the river to meet the increasing demands of more and more anglers in booming northwest Arkansas, this section of the upper White River system has remained … well -- average.

Trout there grew slowly and seldom gained more than a few inches beyond their average hatchery-issue length of 11 inches. The AGFC's creel surveys show that fishermen have settled for catching one of these average-sized trout every hour or so, a rate that's considered satisfactory. But let's be honest here: A mediocre day on the North Fork or Little Red River often exceeds the best day of fishing on the Beaver Tailwater.

Fortunately, the AGFC has reached out to anglers through a series of public workshops to learn what they want and expect from this river, which runs northward from Beaver Dam into Table Rock Lake. The result is a five-year management plan with the potential to turn this ho-hum fishery into an eyebrow-raising, high-quality rainbow trout factory. However, the cornerstones of the program may surprise you. The AGFC wants all anglers to keep limits of those average-sized rainbows, and it's also going to reduce the number of trout it stocks. At first blush, it sounds like a plan to drive life from the river, but it made perfect sense when Darrell Bowman, the AGFC's trout biologist, explained it in an interview earlier this year.

"We've totally revamped the management of this tailwater with respect to trout fisheries," he said.

TOUGH TIMES ON THE RIVER
In the 1990s, the AGFC recognized the increasing fishing pressure on the Beaver Tailwater. With more anglers expecting to catch their share of trout, the AGFC responded by stocking more fish -- particularly rainbows. In 2001 efforts were increased again. 240,000 rainbows and browns were stocked, a 440 percent increase over the 50,000 per year that was typical of the early '90s. Colorful cutthroat and brook trout added variety and allowed anglers to go for a four-species "grand slam" in a single day, but they "just complicated management," Bowman said.

A couple of years ago, the AGFC studied trout in the catch-and-release section of the tailwater and confirmed that the rainbows grew only 1/2 inch per year. Browns had a better rate of 2 1/2 inches per year. The high stocking rates in previous years had caused the rainbows to overpopulate, and the river just didn't have enough forage to feed that many trout.

"At that (slow growth) rate, it would take a fish more than six years to grow (up to 13 inches or more), and natural mortality would get most of them before they got that old," Bowman explained.

Other factors made the situation even worse. For example, floods in the 1990s washed away natural structure, and changes in the quality of water flowing into the river from Beaver Lake may have contributed to a drastic decrease in the population of sculpins, a brownish baitfish that brown trout favor. In general, there are also fewer nutrients in the river to support the organisms that are lowest on the food chain.

NEW PLAN, NEW REGS
Bowman and Stan Todd, the assistant trout biologist, teamed up with other AGFC personnel and special consultants to hold workshops to pick the brains of trout fishermen. A strong theme emerged: Fishermen want to catch quality rainbow trout on the Beaver Tailwater, defined as one 13 inches or longer.

As a result of the meetings and studies of fish populations, the management plan, which was still in draft form at press time, includes regulation changes that are already in effect and management changes to reduce a river that's choked with stocker-sized rainbows.

A 13- to 16-inch slot limit and a requirement for barbless, single-point hooks for bait anglers went into effect Jan. 1. The statewide limit of five trout per day applies to the Beaver Tailwater, but you may keep only one trout per day that's longer than 16 inches. All trout within the slot must be released immediately, regardless of species.

At the other end of the spectrum, Bowman encourages all anglers to support the plan by keeping legal limits of fish that are less than 13 inches long.

"The 'Average Joe' fisherman is no longer interested in taking home a limit every time, but we must decrease the numbers of trout," he emphasized. "We need more harvest to decrease the density of fish."