The Lakes Committee supported a request from a resident to add a rack for canoes and kayaks at Loch Lomond.
They issued their support during a committee meeting last week.
Don Dragland said he has a canoe stored at home, but he would to like to keep it on Loch Lomond, where it would get more use. He told the committee that three lakes have storage racks for canoes, kayaks and johnboats. A rack on Loch Lomond would be used too, he said.
Lakes & Fisheries Superintendent Rick Echols said he has been looking for the money to add the rack and, because it does generate revenue -- members pay a fee to use it -- he thinks it can be done. It could be installed in time for use this summer, he said.
The racks are usually made out of set of poles and concrete blocks, so there's little expense involved.
Also at the meeting, Echols told the committee that two golf ponds are ready to raise crappie this spring. He had planned to raise walleye in one pond, but he can't get the brood fish from Hot Springs Village as he planned. Hot Springs Village doesn't have them, he said. When the walleye that were stocked last summer in Bella Vista are mature, he may be able to breed them -- but that will be at least a year from now.
Echols is still looking for a GRIP coordinator. Goose Reproduction Intervention Program has been a successful volunteer effort to limit the population of resident Canada geese. Volunteers are assigned an area to search for goose nests and oil the eggs which keeps them from hatching. Since the geese continue to care for the eggs, they don't breed again. The coordinator assigns the volunteers and then tracks the numbers of eggs and goslings.
The other part of the goose control program is an annual round-up. The POA is permitted to round up a specific number of geese each summer and euthanize them. Some years, the geese were taken to a processor and the meat was donated, but it's difficult to find a processor in the area, Echols said.
Bentonville has given permission to GRIP volunteers to oil eggs at Lake Bella Vista, which is part of the Bentonville parks system, but they will not give permission to the POA to round up adult geese. It's a controversial issue, said John Urquhart, assistant superintendent of Lakes, Parks and Fisheries.
General News on 02/22/2017