ROGERS - Beaver Lake may be headed to a doubleheader victory with its fish. The smallmouth bass have scored, and now walleye are moving toward the goal.

The big northwest Arkansas reservoir is also doing well these days with other fish species, with largemouth bass, spotted bass, white bass, catfish, crappie and bream. Striped bass are stocked and provide a trophy fishery for anglers although they don’t reproduce naturally in Beaver.

Ron Moore, district fisheries biologist for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said, “We are in our fourth year of stocking walleye in the lake, and it’s looking good. We plan two more years of stocking walleye, then we’ll check to see how they are reproducing, if we are getting a good spawn.”

Walleye as well as smallmouth bass were native to the upper White River that was dammed to form Beaver Lake by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1965. Both declined. Moore said, “Walleye disappeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We really don’t know the reason for this.”

About 15 years ago, smallmouth bass were brought back by several years of production in the Beaver Lake nursery pond. Today, smallmouth numbers are good in many areas of the lake, and significant amounts are showing up in bass tournament weigh-ins as well as for casual anglers.

Walleye are also being produced in the lake’s nursery pond as well as at the AGFC’s nearby Charlie Craig Fish hatchery at Centerton.

Moore said, “The walleye seem to be benefiting from the high water we’ve had in some recent springs and early summers. With the smallmouth, it took a while for them to disperse over the lake, but the walleye already seem to be everywhere.”

High water in the spring on the deep, clear lake brings in nutrients, Moore said, in addition to making conditions ideal for spawning by most species of warm-water fish. Flooded brush and weeds helps young fish to hide and escape predation from adult fish. "Right now we have a good population of threadfin shad in Beaver, and they are the No. 1 forage fish in the lake."

Moore said, “We (Game and Fish Commission) can tweak the lake some, but nature is the main factor. In both 2002 and 2004, we had lots of water in late spring and early summer. It really helped.”

Fishermen are catching walleye, but there is a minimum length limit so most have to be returned immediately to the water.