Hann showed a PowerPoint presentation on the television screen that detailed the results of a study that involved the implantation of fingernail-sized tracking devices in dozens of largemouth bass from various locations at the lake. The reason for this research is to monitor the quality of fishing available at Millwood as it ages.
“As these reservoirs that have been made in the 50s, 60s age and silt in, we want to know what kind of habitat these fish are using, so that we can catch them better, so that I can tell you when you're asking me where the fish are or how best to fish, but also so that we can create more of that habitat, or protect certain areas of habitat in aging reservoirs, just to make it even better, to get better fish, more fish, bigger fish, depending on what we're looking for,” Hann said.
Despite its aging, though, Millwood placed first in a recent analysis of data collected during tournament events. “We use a bunch of different calculations from that in order to rank all of the lakes in the state. And Millwood actually is number one for this past year, 2024 and it's always been a high contender in there, but definitely goes through waves of being good, being bad, being good, being bad,” Hann said, adding that it is often compared to Wright Patman Lake in northeast Texas, another Army Corps of Engineers reservoir.
The results of the study so far has found that large mouth bash do tend to stay close to their accustomed food sources. Hann showed several slides generated from tracking the fish with tracking devices. Few went very far from where the tracking devices were implanted. Slides from study sites at the State Park, Yarborough, Horseshoe, McGuire, White Cliffs and Okay consistently showed the fish mostly remaining in clusters while at most one or two fish per site wandered very far. The most mobile fish were found at Yarborough.
Ten fish caught using electric methods were tagged at each site and their movements after implantation would be tracked monthly, Hann said. Data is also gathered on the vegetation the fish tend to favor at each site.
Fisherman who catch the fish will see an external tag that asks that the fish be released immediately. “We've got a few stories after we tag these 50 fish, the next three weekends, we're getting calls every single weekend of, ‘Hey, I caught this fish. What do I do?’” Hann explained. “Please release it right where you got it. Everyone usually helps us out and does that.”
In a question and answer period, Hann was asked about the possibility of dredging Millwood. He said the number of entities involved in determining policy at Millwood can make carrying forward a plan to do so difficult. “The weird thing is, with Millwood is that there's too many hands in the pot. The [Army] Corps [of Engineers] is managing the lake, and then you've got a water district that owns the water and the surface area for drinking, and so you've got to make all these people happy, and that's where we can't really step in and do much other than regulations and small habitat improvements that we can afford on a 30,000 acre lake,” Hann said. He also said changes upstream to reduce sediment were more likely to be seen than dredging.
Concerning the tagging of the fish, Hann provided some information about the welfare of the fish and where the tags sometimes end up. “We did have some recaptures,” he said. “They do have a tag on the back. It kind of looks like a clothing tag, like a plastic tag … One actually made it all the way home with a guy outside of Hope here, before he realized that it was implanted and and that that fish did expire. But it's neat to see that it had no infection, see that it's healed. We were able to get plenty of pictures of that, just to prove that they didn't expel the tag right after surgery, to know that these fish, that they healed up, that they were okay, that they were moving around,” Hann said. Only six of the 50 fish have been lost so far, he said.
Hann said the region under his purview is of nearly endless interest for the biologist. “I cover six counties in southwest Arkansas. So from Lake Greeson, Tri-lakes, Red River, everything from trout down to alligators. So a very diverse district. It's really cool. I think it's one of the most diverse fisheries districts in the state for the number of species that we have.”
