Volunteers help add valuable aquatic habitat to Lake Ouachita, Chicot

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.

According to Spencer Dorsey, AGFC fisheries biologist in Monticello, materials for the fish habitat structures were either donated from local businesses or were purchased with AGFC funds specifically for fish habitat work.

Fisheries staff in southeast Arkansas upped the artificial habitat ante, adding 30 new structures to Lake Saracen in Pine Bluff. Kris Nault, AGFC fisheries supervisor in Monticello, said the Saracen structures included 10 PVC trees, 10 Mossback Trophy Trees and 10 “spider buckets” created from water-safe plastic tubing and concrete. Three new habitat sites were created, including two located within casting distance of the public fishing piers and one within casting distance of the public shore fishing area.

Exact locations of all fish attractors placed by the AGFC and its partners are available at www.agfc.com/maps under the link to “AGFC Interactive Maps.”

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BOAT DRAGGING TREE
Members of the Arkansas Black Bass Coalition and other volunteers worked with the AGFC and Army Corps of Engineers to add multiple fish attractor sites to Lake Ouachita.

GROUP SHOT
About 25 volunteers showed up on a winter weekend to improve habitat on Ouachita’s northern shore.

BUILDING PVC STRUCTURES
The Lake Chicot Crappie Federation assisted AGFC staff in building 165 artificial structures that were placed in 16 new offshore locations on Lake Chicot.

STRUCTURES ON BARGE
AGFC biologists added multiple artificial structures like these “spider buckets” to Lake Saracen in Pine Bluff.