Arkansas Game and Fish Highlights; 17

Do you now the room. Always good to be with you again. We have Dick Gregory is our guest tonight and Dick it's pleasure to have you on show. Good to be here George like you have by giving us a quick facial report. How quick do you all as of a while ago I was stood it was a little bit slow ball we had some crazy weather this spring. Too much fresh water and yet the fish are biting really I've had some good reports from several likes

around the state on Brem fishing on crab face some pretty good bass fishing. But you're just going to have to pick and choose to where maybe the watershed is not so heavy that the waters can be muddy in a given like Conway's had its good days and bad days but rum facially been a real good up there. Over cap has done well and some pretty good reports from Harrisburg Of course I have Iran as you know doesn't bother us break all that much. Conway can get up muddy and 15 minutes but I hope now that will last in warm weather and here and really get things cracking. Washington actually sprang on both shows as you well know the pictures that we have seen from newspapers up north and they've had a tremendous spring probably the best fishing of anywhere in the state. But yeah it's been good and it's been bad. I'm got a fishing report that I was supposed to convey to us talk to Carl Garner. Monday night of this week and Karl had just gotten in from a short fishing trip on Greer's ferry went out about 6:30 Monday afternoon and faced until dark which is

not quite three hours and came in with his limit of hybrids. Biggest one a little over 11 pounds. Oh that's good. And that caught them all on top water baits and he was fishing in the PITA Creek arm right right at the main part of the lake. And he said that they were school and he was throwing around some bushes and things and didn't get a single black bass strike but lost several that he didn't hook and just had tremendous trip and his want know if one of us could come up the next day and I said well I can't I had two or three things I had to do and I knew you had a photographic assignment that you were going to go up and shoot some pictures the gays. And so I said maybe next to him. Tuesday would have been an excellent day to go it was a beautiful day and course where they were to wipe out again so hopefully some good days ahead of us. You know the Game and Fish Commission is involved in a lot of different activities. The two main ones of course trying to make fishing good and trying to make hunting good

and to take care of the state's Fish and Wildlife Resources and one of the things that the commission does is to try to stimulate as much good fishing in its lakes as possible Game Fish Commission of course is the nation's leader in building Game and Fish lakes with Game and Fish money in fact no other state even comes up to the halfway mark we get twice the acreage that any other state in the nation has ever built with Game and Fish money. So we've got a wealth of lakes here in the Game Fish Commission tries to take care of them. And not long ago Dick went down on Cox Creek like to take some movies of fertilising operation tell us about it. OK let's just get in the cockpit of the airplane while we won't really will kind of watch the guy that in the cockpit here come right straight at us. I don't think you get into your living room but you know not. This is a little bit scary to some people to see somebody even attempt this. But this was an outfit called Aggie air out of Pine Bluff and they were doing

aerial fertilisation on like Conway and I actually you know I think Conway I'm like Cox Creek like I got a column of mine today. He was carrying a thousand pounds of urea on the first few trips and then I was switched to a little different type fertilizer. But around 14 tons of fertilizer I think one time he got through he was flying a thousand pounds to the load. And I said it was dry fertilizer. But he had to land and take off on the levee at Cox Creek Lake which is not too far out of Lee all of south of Sheridan southwest of Sheridan the levee is probably less than a half mile long is just wide enough for a person in one vehicle to drive across. We had a 20 to 25 mile an hour cross land on the levee blowing from the lake across the levee and I thought boy this is going to be tough. But I won't tell you what this young man knew what he was doing. You can see him fight not win but he said that airplane down and just bright and pretty as you please. Levy was

a little rough in spots but he handled it was no great problem that is a Schipperke of aircraft which is a two place aircraft but they took the backseat out put a hopper in there so they could put fertilizer on it watch him drop the tailwheel down off the lead and sling it around come back up the other side he has a modified 180 horsepower Lycoming engine in it and that gives him plenty of power and he really did a super job at it. It's tough to fertilize in the wind anyway. Dry fertilizer a little easier to do that liquid. Sure you get so much drift out of the liquid and you can get down fairly low and this was kind of a pelletized fertilizer. And I was watching it one time as it came in toward the levee. I want to see just how good he was to cut it off without putting fertilizer on us because we were stand on a levee watching him fly over and he would come along there and all of a sudden I'd seen cut off and watch that fertilizer hit

that water and stop within two inches of the edge of the bite. Oh that's pretty close. Listen he knew what he would do. But that's a quick way to fertilize your likely get even production. Of course I'm sure most people realize that what the purpose of this is is fertilizer furnishes the basic nutrients right for your food chain in the water and this is always true. It's just the same as it's true on land. And what happens is when the fertilizer is flowing onto a lake or put on anyway. It causes a greater production of microorganisms that microbes plant and micro animals so plankton phytoplankton than so plankton feeds on the phytoplankton and then eventually higher forms of life. But to a point the higher the fertility the more pounds of fish you can produce the other end of the food chain. So this is just one of the Game and Fish Commission is management techniques on some of its lakes Now not all of our lakes require

this up application of fertilizer some are too big to us all are too big and so are plenty of fertile begets trip and that when the watershed is infertile and that's true in this situation you stimulate the growth of the fish and the production of the fish by applying fertilizer. It seemed like that some of the lakes down in that area just like got wide open like the one that is on the island for like it and we just have to go in there shock a little bit to get help and dark in the water. You'll see a lot of changes in the home. Next week you know that I think fisheries biologist that puts a blood there John Hope was down there long Fred Celarent to a fisheries biologist in the area they were supervising the job of cholera shots we had the fertilizer truck got stuck like it was John in a truck with a winch Italy which did not change our location a little bit or whatever

that truck around because the area where we were was rather moist a lot of grass and just hard to get traction. Watch the tail Bouyeri to work against that when you watch that rotor just working back and forth trying to stabilize and then applying a little bit sideways in that wind and they are trying it out over like it dropped out of it. But he's going into the wind in order to get a lift. He had plenty of power no problem there you want to fight it like some people nervous. That's just it. Then about two and a half three weeks ago and we should be able to see now you see all the fertilizer coming out cut off readied the bike and then I went to our Johnson County waterfowl area up near Clarksville a few weeks ago and that went by the day before yesterday to look at our Canada goose

program licious city of the one where we're trying to establish a resident flock of Canada geese. And lo and behold we have nesting going on this year on two year old birds which is a little unusual. Walter so they don't normally gnashed until the third year. We have two year old class birds of two different types one that the birds that we took over to the hollow bend refuge that we brought down here from Canada. And then this is a different group of birds that we brought in sometime after that. So the ones from hata band have the yellow nasal saddles. And we found some of those Nashton on the outside of the waterfowl area the goose pan and Clark and this is a cooperative program between the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the Corps of Engineers and. As a couple

fellows from the court John Young Myles Johnson were up there on this trip with us along with Kevin Kaufman and Bobby caught away from the Game and Fish Commission and we were just looking around to see how many different Nash we could find and get some film of the Nash to add the eggs while gander just does not like it color around his wife and kids to bait me they call that a mate. Yeah I think he already told us about a couple Tyler they're aggressive they really are. Kevin said that that one just ready get back to America time accountant I guess he's who will now try to see the eggs get counted. Now how did these originally come from eggs that were brought in from Canada. I believe these did but not the ones on the outside the ones with the latest nasal saddles like this one now where were birds and I believe we've gone down here from cat two years ago and they got two years ago and course we're continuing that operation

of bringing eggs from Canada. Yes. The first year we brought 500 eggs of it was done this year. We brought almost 400 that are in the incubators had what used to be a valid back corporation in Russellville it's now called Tasty bird food company and they're hatching those eggs right along with chicken eggs in that same hatchery. But this is we were real interested in because these birds now as I said two year old birds having nested and we've already had a hatch of young from some of these eggs. And we hope to have pretty good success on the hatch up here in the next two or three weeks. And these birds are not inside of me and these are birds that are wild. Yeah they're wild they're they're not captive as such I think their wing feathers have been clipped and held on the ground for one year and then they just naturally nasty here. And if they wanted to could get up to fly out of the area.

But they have just built out in the swamp areas couple of build out on the levee on the outside of the perimeter of the chain link fence. Corps of Engineers has been a big help and in helping us haul these geese they helped us in the construction of the pan and I think I probably put him somewhere around $5000 already and work on the project and are continuing to do it and we're very grateful to the Corps of Engineers for allowing us to use their lands for this project and for the help they get us out. What this goose is doing right there is one reason that the nesting is successful and that is that you know when you come up when you're a predator anything else comes up to the nest they don't just plow no they stay there ready to fight. Well the first thing they do is try to lead you away from it. Yeah and if you keep going toward it then they're going to come in there and try to fight as best they can over time or tell you they've led us to

300 yards down the ladder you know trying to get his wife and then you know we go back and he'd come back again. But some of them were gnashed in Shalah grass out on the edge of the levee. Some of them got out in the wooded areas. I got into water areas where they just had enough high ground to make up and gnashed and sat out there on an island just outside of the events live pretty well here. And if they don't move you really don't see them but the MIO would stay right there and protect the last as best you can. The freeway is just right out there that's their state 40 between. Russian law enforcement so people driving down the freeway will see them out there and realize they are Canada geese love people stop and take pictures. Now this one is while the hollow ban geese that flew over to the Johnson County area did not go inside the fenced area stayed on the outside and made a national right on the edge of one of the sewage treatment plant managers what theirs

is and this is a bird that was hatched in Arkansas. Yes and raised until it is they will take care of itself a hollow band and some in my wild flower. Now this is one of the walk in incubators where they're hatching our eggs along with chicken eggs there for the tasty bird food corporation plant and then they go from this with a chicken egg into another take a bite or what they call their hatchery. They give my glans clout the humidity was really high and the thing they keep the humidity up and the temperature up and every six hours I think you said they rotate the angle the eggs they'll drop like over to the other side. Woody has a lot of eggs. They really do and this is only one of I think 14 walk in Inca buyers that they had there and then the hatchery aggravators on down to another room. But when they want to find eggs that have been pipped a little bit why they'll set them out in one of these trite on the floor and Bill VIII who runs they take a bite of their own at the processing plant. Day that

one day out the door there was one of these little gay stand that though a white boy in the city they always go to go out of the grave in the morning. I want night they had 36 catch off 20 for one night. As of yesterday or day voyage today we were there on Tuesday. They had hatched 200 out of nearly 400 eggs and only lost 12. That's a great real good success. These eggs come from Canada and that they come from the wild and these are up there they have a surplus of Canada geese and so they've started any of the states that would like to have them they've been given to the game fish commissions the ones that are want to cooperate try to build a stay at home flock and when these geese hatch in Arkansas this is home. Oh yeah they don't know anything about Canada so they don't know they're going to try to fly back. And so this is going to be the real secret to the success of our stay at home flocks of geese and these that are hatched here and then they will raise their young here and they'll just fly

around in the state. Well John Walters who is our waterfowl biologist flew up to Marsh Bergen Ontario Canada to get these eggs that's just a little bit north of New York and. Bought a Mac Air and took him out tasty bird food in the bottom right straight in incubators. Well they've been out there for a while was 28 days things and 20 a day and this little bird out about halfway out his leg and he oh my good there it's funny looking when I first I let it all wet look in and wait. But it doesn't take them long to dry out and get their energy and their up and go on. They're the cutest things like kind of a yellow and green in color. There's one that's just Pippin and the gun in his right hand. Oh it was a you know a lot of fun to watch it because I was busy taking movies of color slides of black and whites too so I was trying to get as much as I could on

each one I did get a full sequence of slides of one of the birds breaking out of the egg and eventually getting out of it and I don't know whether we go on living or not because I don't want to got on which can of course they start cheap in before they ever break the ship. Oh yes Larry and there are a mike in their sound. They work at it to get out of eggs. That's a pretty tough shelf that they're designed for and one of they do with them after they hatch out of the after the hatch out ran it got three or bought a Collyer tavern golf and was free will come out every day I check them and see how many have hatched out the night before and I'll take them out from there to my farm that belongs to this company out south east of town out past the airport. They have an enclosure inside a bar there with a heat lamp and water dishes and everything and put them in there and feed them.

Clover growing feed and all till they get subsides and after they've been there for two or three weeks they'll move them on over to Hala band refuge. But. There's a new logo for the new company out there that gets new hats out so we had to wear while I had. But we appreciate their help in hatching these birds for us. We don't have the facilities to do this type of operation. They've been extremely successful with it and it time we had out to 200 birds and although you lose 12 you got a super thing going and we don't have any of the others you're going to have snow now last year we had about 70 percent success rate on hatching. Looks like we're going to do a lot of that this year. We're learning as we go along and so are the I I this is out of the car in a little barn area where we've constructed some pans and we have a heat lamp out there and a little wire fence around it to keep them contained. And there yes that adult in the pan with them so

they're beginning to fret end with the goose rather than learning to follow a human being around which was one of the problems we had last year with some of the geese. We didn't get them with an adult bird quick enough and some thought they were people you know. I was amazed at how quick they would learn because I've only been out here just three days and Joe follows me from the Gazette what up with us. Tuesday I asked Joe several days before if he would like to go up on this trip. He said yes give him a call and I'll see if I go with you so we pick him up in convoy and Joe went with us. My wife also went along and we went out there went through the whole bed again at the Johnson County unit to see how many young birds we could find that hatched out there and also go by the farm again and again and see how the young ones were done. But these birds learned

real quick the voice of the goose. They learn real quick what they're telling but it's just so exciting to walk out into an area in Arkansas and see Kenneth again. We know we'll be able to see the year round. We know that a lot of those gates that we put out of the Hollaback refuge have gone all the way to Bull Shoals like. And I hung around some of the trout cages up there for a period of time in the water. We know that some of the flown down to Conway and stayed around a pond just across the freeway from the sale barn. So they are going to different areas of the state and yet they're staying in Arkansas. So we know that the program is working and we hope that by the end of the five year period that we'll really see a show of success in establishing a resident flock of Canada geese. Hopefully we'll establish a horrible flock and we don't want people caught shooting these

birds out of season for not any season on it. Well we're back over on the levee again now on the outside with the hollow baggies that have vested in the old gander which he was upset again he did not want us blast around that nasty course rented out by the last out and the gander would let Joe go there for a while. We finally got him out the wife and she got up off the nest where we could tell that there were still eggs on the NASS but she did have one little bird in there with her and it's hard to tell how many days it will be between eggs hatching you might get two or three of a hatch just a day apart. Mother may be a delay of several days. We really don't know but they appear to be doing real well. She just stay right there with us. So for two year old geese to Nashton stay whether they are that they've done well. Yeah I wish I had sound as a Rotel.

But any time you see while the geese with yellow eyes will settle on you know that's not a bad little and did not get very upset I think it paid off. Get up under it mama she out of state right there. But you see how small they're nasty if they put a little straw on the grout and then I cover it with a feather. Just like really good left right there and we are going to push the vesting platforms and I think this next year try to create some better areas. I hear some birds that are several days old and we call them over by the fast just away from the freeway. Get over there and try to stay up will look pretty good. What they've already learned the commands of pirates to go

this way go that way and I'd stay right with their big old bird to Georgia any idea when I'm away. No six or eight pounds. If this is the letter Canada gives out. Well there is a lesser integrator and one scholar John Kennedy you know and so that they all will wear away more than that job which will got feather knocked around they automatically just did that turn around all the fanfare. Jovo if it was very good if exercise for the day try to keep up with I assume Lance all five but he was trying to step with a 35 millimeter camera and take the pictures that are just good shots. Now we're out of the farm unit again and you can say these were the birds that which shot the first trip out there look how much

better they are grown up and yeah they've they're beginning to look like geese now is that a little bit of chicken. What they remind me now this is the first bunch that we put outside this is their first time to be out in an enclosure just outside the barn and there was a little water hole in there so it just got out. And boy I went to pick it all that grass and ate yellow flowers and just ignore air Abad. But there's a whole new world of them now they've never seen anything like this before they've just come out the egg from the hatchery into a pan inside with a light and then all of a sudden they're put out in this big wide world of grass yellow flowers. Couple a camera man and then they realized that there was somebody off over there in the car talking to Ellen that was the two I don't usually put in the pan. You'll see their reactions and a lot of we have time and they get to wander in rather they discover the water and then the adult geese weren't real happy with they in that movie camera. I think it might a little

bit too much noise would startle them so they start giving commands to the young to get over here. And when they started talking to the young they left and they did exactly as they were told and it's just amazing how quick they learned how they understand what those commands are. They sure were having fun just to eat. Now they're wandering around that water a little bit you know around the. They had elves and they'll keep them here for probably two more weeks and then take the job with all of the time it was over there or maybe take them up to the Johnson County area and turn the loose there but these birds now would know that Arkansas is home the only place they know they want to have

hit that water inlet all the way out he just made a dive for it. WILLIS You're cute when they're small. Yeah that's er first out of me and water take it out. You know wonder what they are thinking as they see the sight for the first time. Now watch they had all told to get together and they all wanted out there in the water dish and all got still to yell. Course that's the way they do in the wild they camouflaged pretty well and when their parents give a command I sure enough another command right here and they're doing it. Moving over to where she is or where he is always giving the command. But they moved as a unit when they were told to move and they were moving at the signals that the belts were and then when I turned the camera off and walked away.

Then they began to spread out the heat and do whatever they want. But the minute I got over close and turned the camera on that adult bird was speaking to them and telling them you know we're here. Stay close. Be quiet. Course that's what survival is all about. Well Richelle again well they have days where they're a little bit bigger. Some real pretty footage Richard like and of course we're going to follow this phase of the stay at home and also the migratory birds that are brought in here as adults and from time to time we'll be getting a report and an update from Richard on how the gays are getting along. And course we're counting on people in the state that see these birds to leave them alone and not molest them in any way. This is of course the secret to it. They are able to take care of themselves in the wild and then fend off predators and that sort of thing. But a man with a gun is something they can't contend with and we rely on people in the state to take care of them for us. Well I hope you enjoyed tonight's program I

appreciate Dick covering the film and hoping to in the same time next week. Till then so long my name.