AGFC Closing Gates at Lake Conway Dec. 2

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will close the gates to the auxiliary structure of the dam at Craig D. Campbell Lake Conway Reservoir Dec. 2 to allow the lake to begin refilling. The refilling of the lake was relayed to roughly 170 attendees of the agency’s public meeting at the Mayflower High School Cafeteria Monday night during an update on the work that has taken place during the last three years of the renovation.

Nick Feltz, regional fisheries supervisor at the AGFC’s Mayflower Office, said there is still much work to be done to complete the renovation project, but all components requiring the lake to be drained have been completed and the agency will officially close the gates to allow the lake to refill in one month.

“We just passed 3 years into the planned 5-year renovation project, and we believe that with the drought keeping the lakebed as dry as it has, any gains we were going to make have been accomplished,” Feltz said. “We’ve relayed to lakeside landowners through conversations and  Facebook posts that we expected to be ahead of schedule, and we want to be accommodating to those landowners who are trying to finish any construction or repairs to permitted structures or shoreline improvements, so we are going to give one additional month before we close the gates. It will still take substantial rain to fill the lake once the gates are closed, but people who live on the lake know how quickly the lake can fill up if we get the rain in the right places. We’re here to advise everyone to get their last-minute projects in order.”

Feltz gave attendees a rundown of the many projects that have been accomplished in the short time the lake has been drained. While the renovation and marking of 28 miles of boat lanes have grabbed much of the attention of press releases and media, many habitat projects have been accomplished, including the placement of woody structures that will give baitfish shelter, game fish ambush points and anglers key areas to focus their efforts.

“Of course, what we’ve placed pales in comparison to what Mother Nature has done with all the vegetation that has grown on the lakebed,” Feltz said. “We’ve also seen a lot of cypress growth, and we’re hoping to see at least some of those trees continue to grow after the water is back; we’ll be monitoring that closely during the next few years. We also have a lot of grasses and soft vegetation that has grown pretty dense throughout much of the lakebed. All that vegetation will serve as nursery cover for baitfish and young game fish in the first year before it breaks down, offering even more nutrients to the food chain to boost the lake’s fish populations even more.”

The baitfish Feltz refers to will come in the way of regular stockings this winter and next year. Just as with other successful lake renovations, the AGFC first establishes a strong forage base of shiners, minnows, shad and small sunfish before introducing predator fish, such as bass, catfish and crappie.

“Forage stockings have actually already begun with the addition of about 200,000 golden shiners to the lake last week,” Feltz said. “Now that the water is cooling down and we’re planning to let the lake fill, we’ve already started the ball rolling on shiners, and we plan to have fathead minnows, bluegill and redear stocked this winter. We typically wait 6 to 8 months before we stock gamefish to give the forage a head start, and if the forage base responds like we think it will, I’m really wanting to lean toward that 6-month window, but we’ll have to assess once the water is back in the lake.”

Feltz also highlighted some of the work at access points throughout the lake that will benefit shorebound anglers. In addition to improved parking areas and boat ramps being installed during the last few months at many of the public access points, several fishing piers and banks popular with anglers were deepened slightly to offer better angling close to the shore.

“We’ve heard a lot of people suggest that we dig out areas and make islands, but we simply can’t do that because it’s still a wetland area and we have to follow special federal regulations that protect wetlands from damage,” Feltz said. “But we’re doing what we can to improve those areas that we can within the parameters of our permitted activities.”

Feltz reminds anglers and landowners that there is still a good amount of construction work to be done at many access points, and boat lane marking will be completed once the water has filled in the lake and staff can launch barges to work on the water.

“We want to get a good idea about how everything looks from the surface of the water before we finalize how we’re marking the lanes,” Feltz said. “Large utility poles have been driven into the lakebed already, but we’re still deciding on how we label them once we see everything from a boat. There are about 50 or so poles left to drive, primarily south of Highway 89 and in Gold Creek west of I-40, and the contractor will return to complete that once the water has risen.”

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CUTLINES: 

CONSTRUCTION
Construction at Lake Conway has progressed enough to close the gates of the auxiliary structure and allow water to refill the lake, beginning Dec. 2. AGFC photo.

AERIAL
The previous, worn-down manual dam and drain pipes have been completely replaced with a passive spillway and an auxiliary structure to perform future maintenance drawdowns when needed. AGFC photo.

BREAM IN NET
AGFC hatchery crews have already begun stocking Conway with baitfish and plan to stock bluegill and redear sunfish this winter to serve as both forage for larger species and some of the first gamefish the lake will see. AGFC photo.