We will resume our stocking of rainbow trout from Cotter all the way downstream to Sylamore, beginning Friday and running through Tuesday. We ll monitor the situation constantly, and we ll just have to see after Tuesday if we can continue some stocking or not. This is a temporary bit of good news for us and for White River trout fishermen. We re still negotiating with the federal people, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Southwest Power Administration, to get some increased water releases for our trout waters. Gibson said Southwest Power has scheduled evening water releases for generation at the two dams for the next several days.
Water released at the dams is from near the bottom of the lakes, where it is the coldest.
Several recent rains have eased the problem of below-normal lake levels in the White River system. Bull Shoals Lake, the key to the trout water temperature situation, was 10 feet below normal but has risen to six feet below normal. The trout stockings were not suspended from Bull Shoals Dam downstream to Cotter and from Norfork Dam to the North Fork River s junction with the White. We ve still got July, August and September to go in this problem of the too-warm water. The hunters were selected from a squirrel cage of 3,752 applicants at the Buffalo River Elk Festival.