(upbeat music) The name of this show is Naturally Wild.

My name is Steve Wildman Wilson.

I'm your host here each week.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Well, it's hot outside.

You know, it's always a challenge to try to stay cool in Arkansas's outdoors this time of year.

I really don't remember being this hot when I was a kid.

Maybe it was.

Maybe we just didn't care.

Or at least it didn't affect me as much back then as it does today.

You know, we were busy.

We were always busy behind the house, wading into creeks and playing in the sprinklers and spraying each other with the water hose.

But one of my favorite things I remember every now and then, we'd go to the Buffalo River and lay in some of those cool rapids.

And probably one of the coolest things I remember from a long time ago was we'd go up to Blanchard Caverns.

You ever been there?

It's the 53rd Arkansas State Park, by the way.

That was really cool in more than one way.

Hey, another way to stay cool this time of year is to go fishing.

No better place to do that than right here in Arkansas.

But I got a question for you.

Does it ever get too hot to go fishing?

Well, here with me on this show is to answer that question, and a whole lot more, is the deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Ben Batten.

Hey, Ben.

Thanks for having me.

I got a question for you.

Yes, sir.

Does it ever get to hot to go fishing in Arkansas?

No, it does not.

You have to get a little creative, but it's always a good time to go.

It's been hot, though, and it's just the way every year.

I don't know why we always talk about it.

Maybe it's something to do with age.

It seems like it's hotter.

But have you been staying cool lately?

I've been great.

I have been spending time on the lake, sometimes more swimming than fishing, but just trying to get out there and be on the water and, you know, trying to get out there a little earlier.

The good thing about here in Arkansas, if you go fishing down the buffalo or something like that and the fish aren't biting, just go swimming.

Exactly.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

You've been with the Game of Fish Commission for quite some time.

We got to work together, kind of back up and tell the viewers where you're from.

Yeah.

So I grew up in a little town outside of Springfield, Illinois, and went to college up there, and then I came to Arkansas back in 2004 to get my master's degree in fisheries.

So I went to Pine Bluff and then got on with Game and Fish.

I've been 17 years now at the Game and Fish, if you can believe that, I remember you.

I remember when you started.

Yeah.

Where did you start and kind of tell us where you've been to get up to Deputy director.

That's pretty, that's pretty high up there, Ben.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So I started out in our family and community fishing program, which was a great place to start.

I spent six years working on that program.

Stocking ponds around the state for families and kids to enjoy.

And then I went into the fisheries, stayed in the fisheries division but moved up into leadership.

I was assistant chief for three years.

Then I was the chief of the Fisheries Division for four years, and now I've just finished my fourth year in the director's office as deputy director.

So do you miss being outside?

I know in some of those positions you got.

Yeah.

I do.

But the office is air conditioned.

You got to look at it that way.

There is that.

But I definitely miss being outside as much as I used to be.

Well, you know, one of the things I wanted to do this show is because we're going to talk about trout fishing in a few minutes, because that's a great way to stay cool here in Arkansas is go trout fishing.

But there's still a lot of people out there fishing every day.

Bass fishing I see on Facebook, fishing tournaments all the time.

I wanted to kind of spend a few minutes talking about a new program that Game and Fish introduced.

I guess it was in January, really the first time ever it was called The Legacy Lunker.

Explain what that is for the viewers.

Yeah, we're so excited about this new program.

Like you said, just kicked off this year.

And what it is is it is a trophy bass celebration and production kind of project.

And so if an angler catches a bass over 10 pounds between January and the end of March, we will come meet that person at the lake.

And if it looks good, we'll take that fish back to our hatchery and spawn it.

It's pretty exciting.

Okay, now this is public waters only.

In other words, if you've got a pond, it's got a big 10 or 12.

But no, you can't do that.

But it's public waters only in January, Mainly because that's the spawning season.

They're catching the females off the beds before they lay their eggs.

The spawning season is March, April, May.

And so we want to take those fish January, February, March so we can get them in a hatchery, get them acclimated.

So hopefully they'll spawn when that time comes.

Before they have their eggs in the lake.

That's right.

Because you you take them.

If you catch one over 10 pounds, you give them a call, they will come and pick it up any time of night.

Yes, they had a lot of runs and they didn't get back to the hatchery until midnight or 1 a.m.

and.

Look at some of those big old fish, and then they take it to the hatchery and put it in there.

And they they have a guy waiting on it there.

Yeah, yeah.

So they're.

Going to match it up with.

They do, they do.

And we're working with some folks that are experts in genetics to help us pair up these males and females.

And so the point is to produce, you know, we know those big females have great potential to grow large.

And so we had a great season this year.

We had 19 fish were caught, 18 of them.

We were able to take back to the hatchery.

And we were able to produce 300,000 fingerling fish.

So that's about a 3 to 5 inch fish.

You know, they'd be spawn again in April and May and by about the end of June, 1st of July, they're going out back to the lakes.

Okay, let me get this right.

So you bring the females in, they pair up with a good DNA.

Yeah.

Boy fish, if you will.

Then you let them spawn there in the hatchery.

Correct.

Indoors.

And then you go stock them back in the lake that they came from with their mama.

Yeah.

That's right.

So and another neat thing is those anglers that caught and turned in those fish, they get the opportunity to go back out with the biologist and put that fish back, maybe even on the bush they caught it on or whatever.

So that's neat.

Well, now how long will it take these?

Because you've got good bloodline in there now, 320,000 fish, how long will it take them to?

Will that grow faster than a normal bass?

Yeah, these are likely to grow fairly quickly.

And I can just say, you know, we can see results in as soon as, say three years, but for sure in 4, 5 and 6.

So for example, Lake Monticello that we recently renovated, it's just three and a half years past its renovation and it already produced a 10 pound bass.

So that's incredible growth rates.

That's a that's best case scenario.

You know, when people think about bass fishing here, obviously they think about Ouachita, Millwood, you know, ones that get all the highlights because they do produce a lot of big bass.

But we got surprised, didn't we?

Weren't the first, the first three bass, the first two came out of a little place?

They came out of Lake Austell, which is up in a state park outside of Wynne and three fish out of a 60 something acre lake.

So that was incredible.

Now it's produced some big fish in the past, and we knew it was a possibility.

Did not expect the first three to come out of that lake.

But think about it, those fish are back in there along with a lot of their offspring, so who knows.

That's right.

That should help the future.

How many different lakes?

I know, like we said, Ouachita, Millwood.

Yeah.

DeGray?

DeGray.

Austell, Atkins.

We had eight different lakes that produced.

And so that was that was really exciting.

And that's a great testimony to where we have statewide fisheries.

I mean, you've been managing for largemouth bass for a long time, and there's a lot more of them out there.

If that many were turned in, they donated that.

Just think of how many more were caught that they didn't want you to know where they were.

There's definitely some of that that went on.

Hey, let's switch that a little bit.

It took special renovation of that Joe Hogan fish hatchery, Lonoke fish hatchery.

Been there.

Is that the oldest hatchery in the United States?

I don't know that it's not the oldest in the United States.

It's definitely the oldest in Arkansas.

It's one of the largest warm water fish culture facilities in the nation owned by a state.

And we did a huge renovation over the past couple of years.

It finished up last summer.

And what it did was you can't just bring a bunch of fish out of the wild and throw them in a tank together.

They'll give each other diseases, cause problems, stress each other.

So this hatchery renovation allowed us to build some big tanks.

So what we were doing is we had we have up to 20 tanks we can use, and we put fish from the same lake together.

So those three Austell fish were in one together and things like that.

But we didn't have the space and the capacity to bring these fish in and quarantine them until we finished this work.

Our fish hatchery system here in Arkansas, I've always heard it's one of the largest in the United States.

We got four warm water fish hatcheries?

That's right.

For warm water hatchery and a trout facility.

Roughly how many, how many fish does Arkansas Game and Fish stock across the state every year?

So we'll stock about 9 million fish on average in public waters.

Wait, you said 9 million?

9 million.

Yes, sir.

Now, when I see 9 million fish, I'm thinking.

But you're talking about.

A lot of these fish are going to be small fingerlings.

Fingerlings.

But still that's 9 million potential big ones.

That's right.

And we stock a lot of forage fish too, like bluegill, golden shiners and threadfin shad and things like that to to supplement food populations.

Forage fish means that's the fish that the big fish eat.

It's a food chain in there, but you can't get big without being older too.

The renovation of the Lonoke hatchery is huge and it's going to pay dividends.

This was our first year at Legacy Lunker, huge success, would you say Texas has been doing this for a number of years?

Yes, Texas have been doing it for 40 years this year.

However, we are only the second state in the country to do a program like this, so we're really proud of that.

And like I said, first year went off great.

There was a lot of nervousness about, you know, you don't want to lose a fish.

And we didn't.

And so very proud of all the work that went in from our folks in the biologists and the hatcheries and everything to pull it off.

Well, good.

Congratulations on the Legacy Lunker.

It's hot out there bass fishing, like I said before, if you want to get cool and fish at the same time, I'd go trout fishing.

Talk about that a little bit.

You've got one cold water fish hatchery.

You got five total, four warm water, one cold It's located in around Hardy.

Talk about that.

Up in Mammoth Springs, pretty much on the state line.

There's the Mammoth Spring, which is an incredible feat of nature where there's like a million gallons a minute just pumping out of a hole in the ground up there.

And we're able to use that.

So trout, you have to have cold water.

You know, they really want to be about 55 degrees and that that spring is pumping water out at that temperature year round.

So we have that facility.

We also partner the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

They have three fish hatcheries, and we work as a team to stock all the fish that go out in Arkansas waters.

We had a few problems this last year, recently, and Mother Nature does that to us.

Talk about the damage up there and how we're coming along.

Yeah.

2025 was a really rough year for Arkansas Trout production.

So first in April we had a near record level.

I think it was the second record flood up at the spring River, and we lost about 75% of our fish on that hatchery.

Just walked out that.

Yeah, they either died or if they were able to get out and swim, they got stocked unintentionally.

So you can imagine fishing once that flood went down.

Fishing was pretty good up there for months, but that was really unfortunate.

You know, that threw a wrench in our plans.

And then later on that fall, the main federal fish hatchery of Norfork, they had almost a 90% loss with a really bad water quality issues that fall.

So we've had problems at either, but we've never had both that one two punch.

Yeah, there's a double whammy.

Wasn't it?

It was.

Hey, I think I read the other day where Oklahoma had the same problem.

Did they had a flood come through?

Well, they got some of their fish from our facility.

Not not from Game and Fish, but from the Federal Fish Hatchery.

So yeah, they're working with the same fish we are.

So they're affected by the same problem.

You know, I was shocked to find out how long it takes.

I know we buy the eggs from federal fish hatcheries, but you take them there at that hatchery up there in Hardy, how long does it take to get it from that little egg to a stackable sized catfish?

I mean, trout, catfish too.

But so we we it used to take more like 21, 22 months.

We did some renovations up there and changed our design.

We now have it down to about an 18 month time period to grow that fish, which makes a big difference.

Yeah, and I think talking about catfish, it takes about a year, year and a half to get them out.

It's about a 17 month process as well.

So and I want to bring that out because hey, when you go to these fishing derbies, you know, these guys stock the city park ponds with catfish in the summer and trout in the winter.

Every time you catch one, it's 13in long, 15.

It's a year and a half that these guys put in to raise it and stocking it, that's a lot of investment.

It does.

It takes a lot.

People think they just show up.

But you know every catfish we produce in the state starts on the Joe Hogan Hatchery.

We grow some of them out elsewhere.

But you're right.

I mean, it's a significant investment to get that catchable sized fish.

But we love doing it.

People love it and it's great.

Yeah.

And do you know how many trout you usually stock around this state every year?

Yeah.

So again with the feds together we stock about 1.5 million trout.

Now this year because of what we've gone through we've only going to stock about 860,000.

I will say on the positive, the Spring River is back to 100% Right now.

That hatchery is up and running.

It is.

And Norfork has all the fish back, but they need some more time to get some of those up.

So we predict early 2027 they should be back to.

That's good news.

Yeah, it is good news.

Hey, when people think about trout fishing, you know, I think everybody's seen that movie River Runs Through It.

And but there's a lot of different ways of course, that's fly fishing and that's beautiful.

And it's I'm not a real good fly fisherman, but it's a great way to.

But it's not the only way to fish for trout.

A lot of people don't realize that.

Now.

There's I mean, we can meet any angler of any skill level.

There's a place for you to trout fish.

And different methods.

I know wading is one of my specialty, especially this time of year.

I mean, it's, you know, nothing feels better in that 55 degree weather.

I wear waders still because it gets a little chilly, but you can stand out there knee deep and fly fish or fish with a spinning rod.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So you know talking about different methods again you could be in a boat.

You could be on a kayak.

You can be wading.

Yeah.

You'd be sitting in a lawn chair.

I started to say, I see a lot of people this time of year pull a lawn chair out there about knee deep.

Sit back there.

I guess they're fishing.

I don't know, they're probably just cooling off, but you have just good luck there.

I see a lot of people, too.

You can fish as you go down the river floating and drift.

Drift fishing.

Yeah, yeah.

You can anchor up, sit in one place.

You know, like I said, there's just there's many ways to do it, you know, and so you just need to figure out what works best for you.

And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

But there's a lot there's plenty of ways to do it.

The types of trout you catch in Arkansas, roughly, we have four basic types of trout.

Would you say yes?

Yes.

Are they breeds of trout or species of trout?

Correct, correct.

So let me, open your book there folks.

You need to pick one of these books up.

By the way.

It's a it's the new guide just out.

This one came out in July.

This one just camer out and a little change.

This book is now including the trout regs right.

We did that last year for the first time.

But the second year we've got all the regs together.

We used to produce a standalone trout book.

And of course all these you know you can get your pick these up at outfitters and Walmarts and bait shops.

But everything's available online and through our app as well.

So look on page 16 and let's talk about the four basically four types of trout species.

Probably the most common is is the rainbow.

It is, so 94% of the catchable trout we're going to stock in a year are rainbow.

94%?

Yeah.

And that's an 11 to 12 inch fish like we talked about takes about you know, 18 to 20 months.

What's the attraction to the rainbow?

Other than the beauty of it, the colors got that pink stripe down the side.

Now they are very pretty fish.

The reason we do is just because they're they're the most easily domesticated fish.

So they take to living in hatcheries, they breed well, they eat well, they grow well.

And that's why, you know, years ago when they started probably trying all of them, the rainbow just stuck because it was.

They pulled good too.

They do, they do.

It's really a fun type of fish.

That's the rainbow.

Let's move from there to the brown.

The brown trout probably got the more, well, more people fish for rainbows, but the browns got some famous history here in Arkansas.

Definitely, the browns folks love.

And you know, we have some interesting things on on Greers Ferry or Little Red Tail water.

You know we had the world record brown trout was from there, 40 pound four ounce fish.

And that, Ben, I think, before you even came to work, I think we've held a world record three different, three different times.

We might want to we might want to point out the fact that one reason we have trout hatcheries is because the rainbows don't reproduce.

I'm sure it happens every now.

A little bit, but not well.

Yeah, not a lot.

But the browns do reproduce.

On Little Red River Tail water.

That's the only one that we have not stocked in decades because they are totally self-sustaining.

And that's a really neat deal that we're very proud of.

Now, the rainbows, they don't get as big as the browns.

I mean, that brown was 40 pounds.

Yes.

And there's more in there that size or bigger.

They're just smarter.

The rainbows don't get that large?

They're not going to get near that large.

You can still get some really big fish.

But the browns definitely king on size.

Yeah yeah okay.

So that's the brown trout.

Another one in there is the cutthroat trout.

I've caught one of these in my life.

Yeah there are really neat one.

They're called cutthroat.

It's pretty straightforward reason they have a red patch on their throat.

Looks like their throat's been cut.

It looks like there's blood on it.

Are they not as colorful as the rainbow?

Not quite.

But we also stock a few different varieties that have different spotting patterns.

They're beautiful fish.

They're a really fun one to catch.

But, you know, it's something to catch a cutthroat because they're not near the numbers out there.

And then the last one is probably one of the most beautiful of all, I think, is that brook trout.

For me, that's one of the prettiest fish, you know, out there in the state they're, you know, bright red.

They've got these beautiful brown, blue and red spots and they've got white fin margins.

So the tips of their fins are bright white.

They're really beautiful.

They don't get as large as some of the other.

No, I think they're probably the smallest thing we got.

Yeah.

State records in the 4 to 5 pound range.

And I know the big challenge is I've heard a lot of people say, hey, go, go catch that grand slam.

And that's what you mean.

You catch one of each four species?

That's right.

A couple other species here, but not as popular.

What you got new, a golden trout?

Yeah.

So the golden trout is a rainbow trout that's just bred for a certain characteristic.

And they're bright yellow.

They look like a banana in the water.

The other interesting one is the tiger trout, which is a cross between brown and brook trout.

And they have a really pretty pattern.

Again, they're taking off in some of our tail waters.

Wow.

And I know they're all fun to watch, but the best thing about it at this time of year it's cool up there fishing.

Types of baits.

What do you use mainly?

I know when you're trout fishing it's totally different from anything else.

What what would you say about if you're going to go trout fishing you got to size down.

Yeah.

Let's talk about least complicated way to the most complicated.

Bait fishing is probably the simplest.

Using artificial eggs or even real eggs preserved on a hook with a weight on the bottom.

Kind of not different from, like a catfishing rig.

Just a weight to keep it down and a bait.

After that, I would say you have your kind of small jigs and again, definitely size down.

Probably the number one thing I always want to tell people is use smaller line than you think.

If you go out there with 8 or 10 pound test, they will see it and you will not get as many bites as somebody fishing next to you that's got 2 or 4 pound test on.

You really got to size down.

My age or older, get magnifying glasses.

I'm starting to get lines look like thread.

I mean the trout fish, they sigh fishers, they look for colors and they can see extremely well versus a catfish.

They just smell it and eat it.

So yeah, that's a great point.

Trout are by far you know, strong visual predators.

They are in clear water and they are using their eyes to decide what they're going to eat or not.

And, you know, they're fairly can be smart, especially ones that have been in the river a long time.

You don't get big being stupid.

That's right.

Before we run out of time, talk about where people can go.

You know, I know people know about the White River.

I mean, it's world famous.

People come from all over the world to trout fish in Arkansas.

They really do.

The Little Red.

But we've got other places in Arkansas that you've guys stock trout.

That's good to go.

Yeah.

So you hit the two biggest.

Then after that is Norfork and Beavertail Waters.

We also have in southwest below Lake Greeson.

We have more of a seasonal trout fishery.

And then we do even in the wintertime, as you're aware on that family and community fishing program, they stock a little over 40 locations with trout around the state where you can go catch them in the city.

As long as water stays cool enough, and you got a couple of places in Hot Springs below the dam.

Yeah we do.

Below those three tail waters there on the Ouachita River, there's there's some stockings as well.

Special rules and regulations always with trout.

You got different limits, different places.

You got barbels areas.

Talk a little bit about the trout limits because it's changed recently.

First of all, anyone whatever you're fishing for, wherever you're going, grab a book.

I always say know before you go.

Make sure you check and figure out what your regs are, because the last thing you want to do is end up out there and, you know, get in trouble or anything else.

And so the big thing is, for years and years, the statewide trout daily limit was five fish.

But with these challenges the hatchery we set some emergency regs back last fall.

And we dropped that daily limit down to two.

And then we did a regulation cycle this spring where we cemented those in.

So those are going to be two fish daily limit on those big tail waters.

There's a max limit of 14in.

So we're not letting folks keep big fish.

And again this is to kind of recover from the lack of stocking.

And so those will remain in place at least until 2028 when we do our next reg cycle.

But are we have a great trout management team.

They're going to look at all these rivers with their sampling equipment.

They'll sample anglers and decide where do we go from here.

And you also have different areas or stretches of rivers that are catch and release only.

I mean, you're trying to be I guess everybody wants something different, you know, always got a kick out of it when you ask people, hey, do you want more fish or do you want bigger fish?

You know what they usually say?

Both.

Yep.

You really can't have both in a sense.

But you do have stretches on different rivers where it's catch and release only barbless hooks, I guess.

Yeah, sure.

So we have several different special reg areas like that.

And again, you can get in the book and look and it'll tell you from where to where.

There's signs on the ground that tell you when you're in that zone and everything else.

But yeah, there's some special catch and release areas where we try to protect high volumes of quality fish.

What do you need to go fishing here in Arkansas?

Licenses, permit, so forth.

Yeah.

You just really need your your fishing license and a trout stamp.

Yeah.

And that's for different ages because if you're under 16, you still fish free here in Arkansas.

That's right, that's right.

And like, you know, last month we had free fishing weekend.

That's a chance to go try it without that stuff.

But normally again 16 and over you need just a fishing license and a trout stamp.

And that trout stamp goes directly, again, we talk about how expensive it is to produce these trout.

And so that goes to that and management and things like that.

Any idea on the economic impact of trout fishing here in Arkansas.

Yeah.

So back we used some 2023 survey data an we published a report in 2024.

And so just direct expenditures.

So this is people paying for, you know, gas, food, licenses, if they if they got a guide, if they lodge, and if they ate, okay.

Just those things, $237 million in a year.

Now that doesn't touch, there's a much broader economic impact for, you know, what those guides make and what the resorts take in.

And, you know, and then there's a whole economy around real estate and people, you know, there's lots of beautiful houses along these rivers and things.

So, you know, a lot of these communities are heavily driven by trout fishing.

Yeah, yeah.

One thing before we leave here, though, if they if you don't know about trout fishing, you're just getting into it or want to try it out.

We recommend because that water can get pretty dangerous up there with levels and so forth.

Hire a guide, there's a new service out.

It's called Guide Ark, Guide Ark, where it's a list of guide services up there that are reputable guides.

Our partners at Outdoor Rec have put out a deal where they're vetting guides and, you know, they can get on.

And so anybody can go and check out and they know if they have a guide from there, they'll be good.

But I talk to folks.

I mean, get a guide if you can afford.

And that makes sense for you.

Get one anywhere because you will learn so much in a 4 or 5 hour trip that then you can go and choose to do on your own or whatever, but it's definitely well worth it if you can.

I always tell people, hey, if you can't afford it.

Wait a year, save up your money, go.

You'll have a great time.

They do everything for you.

I mean, you don't even.

You have to have any equipment.

They've got all that.

They've got the waders and so forth.

They got the baits.

They know where the fish are.

Just pay attention to what they do and what they tell you.

You don't need them anymore.

Then if you think you'd like it, you can go invest your $5 million into this fly fishing stuff.

But it's a great I mean, we have a we have fly fishers organizations here.

What is it?

Arkansas fly fishing.

Yeah.

We have a really rich community around trout fishing, around guiding here in Arkansas.

We're fortunate.

And it's just such a neat resource that all that's grown up around it and it makes it it's really rich.

Well, good.

It's the future looks good for us.

It does, it does.

We had a little hurdle this last year, but I feel like we're back on the right path.

Ben, thank you so much for coming in.

Great information.

Hope you've enjoyed this all about trout fishing here in Arkansas.

Stay cool.

We'll see you next week right here on Naturally Wild.

This program was made possible by Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, East Harding Construction Company, David's Burgers, Greenway Equipment, Arkansas Farm Bureau, and the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas.

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