There’s good news and bad from Lake Brittany in Bella Vista, where rainbow trout rule the roost during winter.
On the bright side, anglers are catching some heavyweight trout this year.
The bragging board at Hook, Line and Sinker tackle shop in Bella Vista has photos of smiling anglers with trout up to 6 pounds.
The down side: Trout won’t be stocked at the lake this month and maybe not for the rest of winter.
The future of the trout stocking program at Lake Brittany is uncertain, said Darrell Bowman, lakes ecologist and fisheries manager for the Bella Vista Property Owners Association.
Cuts at the POA mean there’s no money to buy trout to stock in Lake Brittany, Bowman said.
“We don’t know the future of the program,” he said.
Attempts to reach Tommy Bailey, POA general manager, about the trout program Wednesday weren’t successful.
Bella Vista POA members and guests are eligible to fish at Lake Brittany. Public trout fishing is available at Lake Atalanta in Rogers and Murphy Park lake in Springdale. These lakes are stocked by the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.
There’s no move afoot to end the Game & Fish winter trout program, Melissa Jones assured on Wednesday. Jones is cold-water coordinator for Game & Fish.
A halt to trout stocking hasn’t affected the good fishing at Lake Brittany, at least not yet. There are two reasons anglers are pulling lunker trout out of the lake, Bowman said.
First, a good number of trout stocked during the winter survive in the lake through the summer. They get big.
Second, the POA got its trout from a different hatchery this year. Crystal Lake Fisheries Inc. in Ava, Mo., is the new supplier.
“What we buy is 1,000 12-inch trout per month,” Bowman said.
The hatchery has been throwing in a few lunkers with each load of fish. One or two lunkers caught this winter could be from the hatchery, but Bowman said most of the big ones are summer carryovers. Terry Cruizer, POA member, caught a 6.2-pound rainbow trout and a 5.8-pounder at Lake Brittany on the same day a few weeks ago, Bowman said.
Robert Henry caught an 8-pound rainbow trout at Brittany in March 2012.
These hot-weather survivors are obvious, not just by size, but by their meat.
Trout fresh from the hatchery have white flesh because of the fish chow they are fed, Bowman said. Those that have been in the lake for awhile feeding on natural forage have pink or orange meat. Trout aren’t the only news from Lake Brittany. Bowman said an untapped trophy large mouth bass fishery has developed at the 35-acre lake, one of the smallest in Bella Vista.
Bowman said few anglers fish for bass at Lake Brittany because the ramp is steep and narrow and not the easiest place to launch the large-sized boats some bass anglers own.
Plus, Brittany is a no-wake lake. Anglers with fast boats can’t put pedal to the metal.
Bowman has shocked up some 8- to 12-pound largemouth bass during electrofishing research at Brittany.
“It’s getting impressive,” he said. “It has improved every year since 2008.”
Big bass or big trout. Anglers eligible to fish at Lake Brittany have their pick.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
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Outdoor, Pages 5 on 01/24/2013