Big Browns Given the Chance to Get Bigger, Hollie Miller Pic
In case you missed the news, in most media reports it was buried below duck hunting regulation changes, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission passed regulations to increase the protection on brown trout significantly.
This regulation should markedly increase the average lifespan of bigger browns, who have been naturally targetted. However now is the time for the Commission to step up and implement barbless bait hook regulations in order to reduce C&R mortality by bait fishers. That may seem onerous to some but having watched this rule come into effect on Beaver Tailwater there was in reality very little opposition. And this will ensure that what is in effect a C&R policy on brown trout under 24″ will actually achieve its purpose
The previous limit of only 2 brown trout over 16″ will be replaced by 1 brown trout over 24″ from January 1 on both the White and Norfork. This is going to allow protected growth for browns until they truly reach trophy size.
According to the Commission this will “focus management strategies on brown trout as a trophy component of these fisheries. Growth and survival of brown trout appear to be good in these waters and larger (>20 inch) brown trout are not uncommon. Creel survey and population sample data, however, suggests that this change could provide additional protection to larger brown trout thereby improving the size structure of the population.”
The Commission will also change the definitions of Catch and Release waters on Bull Shoals and the Little Red. Physical boundarys (like Jenkins Creek for the upstream end of the Rim Shoal trophy zone) will be changed.
“In summer 2007, a citation was issued to an angler fishing with bait within the Rim Shoals catch-and-release area. The angler was fishing within the boundary signs, but outside the physical boundary (Jenkins Creek) listed in the AGFC Code Book and the Trout Guidebook. The angler argued that the signs did not constitute the boundary of the catch-and-release area, although this was the intent. A local judge threw out the citation. This change will bring these special regulation areas in line with other areas that read “as indicated by signs”.
