AUTHORS: Joseph E. Kaiser, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; Christy Graham, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
ABSTRACT: The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) primarily stock two strains of Brown Trout Salmo trutta into Arkansas’ trout fisheries. Those strains include the Plymouth Rock and Crawford strains, which were considered average regarding hatchery and post-stocking performance according to historic evaluations conducted for the USFWS’s Strain Registry. In 2021, we began a contemporary evaluation of both strains on the Spring River trout fishery located in north-central Arkansas. The evaluation coincides with current strategies used for managing Brown Trout on Spring River which include annually stocking approximately 10,000, 229-mm fish and regulating harvest with a daily limit of one fish over 356 mm. From 2021 to 2024, we uniquely marked all Brown Trout stocked in Spring River (2021-22 = Crawford; 2023-24 = Plymouth Rock). We collected and tagged Brown Trout seasonally (every 3-5 months) beginning in June 2021 to track growth and survival rates of each strain. We also collected data on seasonal diets, water temperatures, and Rainbow Trout stocking rates to incorporate into the current evaluation.
