Disaster seems to have been avoided last week when a power outage on Bull Shoals Dam had an effect on the White River trout fishery. Some trout did not survive after water was drained from the shallowest parts of the riverbed, but according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission staff from the Mountain Home office were able to manually move several stranded fish into deeper water.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Operations Project Manager Mark Case tells KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot News the outage occurred during the early morning hours of Dec. 2 due to an electrical fault on one of the dam’s units.
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Because of the time the outage occurred, there wasn’t an alert to open a diversionary supply of emergency water into the tailwater. When the water started draining, some trout reportedly huddled in small landlocked pools, and others were stranded on the gravel. In addition, several brown trout are in the tailwater directly below the dam as the spawning season started last month and continues through February.
Game and Fish Trout Program Coordinator Christy Graham tells the Little Rock newspaper she was notified of the problem, and the Corps later opened a secondary conduit into the tailwater. Graham says she believes the number of trout lost was “fairly small.”
Case says he was not aware of the issues with the trout fishery, but he had praise for the staff’s response to the outage.
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Game and Fish were notified of the issue by anglers on the water.
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