Arkansas Oct. 8 weekly: Calico Rock trout plants and a 25-inch Beaver rainbow

The Oct. 8, 2026, Arkansas Wildlife Weekly Fishing Report leads with a birthday fish. Jim Harris, managing editor of Arkansas Wildlife, writes that Calan, a young angler from Kansas, caught a 25-inch rainbow on the Beaver Lake tailwater. Guide Austin Kennedy of Busch Mountain Fishing Guide Service passed the report along. Kennedy’s Oct. 8 note says the tailwater is still low, the trout bite is fair, and fish are spread out in deeper holes, current seams, and pockets where moving water meets deeper water. He is still on Pautzke Fire Bait, small spoons, and jigs, and he says walleye remain worth a look farther downstream toward Holiday Island on white grubs and paddle tails worked slowly on the bottom.

On the White River, Dave McCulley of Jenkins Fishing Service in Calico Rock, also updated Oct. 8, said fishing has been consistent, with numerous trout over 14 inches. Mornings have been better downriver and afternoons better upriver. He reported an AGFC stocking-raft plant of 1,075 rainbows from the Calico Rock boat ramp to Glass Island, about a mile downstream, another 1,075 rainbows at that boat ramp, 800 at the Chessmond Ferry boat ramp, and 800 at the Mt. Olive boat ramp.

Cotter Trout Dock’s same-day White River note puts Bull Shoals Lake at 654.07 feet msl midweek, under a power pool of 659 feet, with average flow at the 700 cfs minimum. On Bull Shoals Lake itself, guide Del Colvin said Wednesday the water was about 76 degrees and the lake was 653 feet, five feet below pool, with a thermocline moving down around 35 feet. Beaver Lake guide Jon Conklin said the lake is down and will stay that way until it is 1,112.89 feet msl, with water in the mid-70s and stripers the best bet from Point 5 to the dam.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: AGFC — Arkansas Wildlife Weekly Fishing Report (Jim Harris, Oct. 8, 2026).