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Well, it doesn鈥檛 happen very often, but we have released a few of our trophy trout once again. Releasing some of our display fish is a great way to free up space in the raceway and invigorate the public with the chance at some great trout. All of our display raceway fish originated from other raceways on the hatchery. They were most usually fish that ended up mixed in with smaller fish one way or another. As you would imagine, they gorge themselves on the smaller trout and grow quickly. We remove them when we can and they end up in the display raceway, where visitors feed them quite heavily. It is always fun to see how large they can become here at the hatchery, but stocking them in the river and allowing fisherman a chance at landing one is even more gratifying. Thus, we were happy to move out some of the hatcheries largest residents.
As they have in the past, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission tagged each fish that was released. They also recorded the length and weight of each fish. This time around all of these fish were Rainbow trout, ranging from around five to thirteen pounds! Ten fish were released at Quarry Park below Norfork Dam and ten were release at the confluence of the North Fork and White Rivers. Five lunker fish will also be released below Beaver Dam in the near future. We hope these fish build some excitement in the fishing community here. Maybe some of these fish will star in a social media post in the future. All in all, releasing a few of our display fish relieve some of the stress in the raceway while boosting morale for fisherman.
Sidenote: It鈥檚 really fun for us too!
