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MAMMOTH SPRING - When three federal trout hatcheries turned up with a surplus of rainbow trout, their problem was solved with a phone call to Melissa Jones, manager of the Spring River Hatchery of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
"We’ll take them," Jones told the managers of the federal hatcheries at Greers Ferry and Norfork in Arkansas and at Neosho, Mo. The extra trout are in addition to the regular supplies of rainbow trout given the Game and Fish Commission by the three hatcheries. These supplies are a product of a long-running agreement for trout to replace native warmwater fish below several major dams in Arkansas.
Jones explained that at the end of a production season at the federal hatcheries, any extra trout are given state wildlife agencies or released into the wild at the site of the hatcheries. She said few of the small surplus trout would survive releasing like this. The federal hatcheries then clean their facilities for the next season,
Instead, the Game and Fish Commission took the five-inch trout leftover from stocking commitments by the hatcheries, moved them to the Spring River Hatchery at Mammoth Spring and grew them out to an average of 12 inches long. This means a rainbow trout able to fend for itself in the wild and also to be of a catchable size attractive to anglers.
Jones said 18,400 of the surplus five-inch rainbows came from Greers Ferry, 8,000 from Norfork and 20,800 from Neosho. "Unfortunately, we can’t count on receiving surplus fish from the federal hatcheries every year. This is the first time in 10 years that we have received any fish from Neosho. Last year, Greers Ferry gave us over 100,000 three- to four-inch fish that they didn’t have this year. So we really can’t count on this extra production with any regularity."
There is a cost with the extra fish, however. Game and Fish Commission crews have to feed them to get the rainbows from five inches long up to 12 inches. Jones said, "We have not had to ask for additional funds to raise these fish because our feed costs were lower this year compared to last year."
Uploaded: 11/13/1999
Uploaded: 11/13/1999