Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast, the official podcast of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

We are talking hunting, fishing, and conservation with engaging guests and in-depth discussions with game and fish staff.

It's Arkansas Wildlife, the podcast for all things outdoors in the natural state.

Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast.

Thanks for joining us today.

My name is Trey Reed with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

And joined by a guest that you've seen before here.

If you, if you're a regular listener of the podcast, we got Nick felt from our fisheries division here at Arkansas Game and Fish joining us.

Nick welcome back.

Good morning.

Good I can't imagine what we're going to talk about today.

Right.

Well if you've if you're a regular listener and if you're not, we'll let you know.

Nick is our district ten.

Fisheries supervisor out of the Mayflower office.

And there's a pretty big lake there in that district that's been undergoing some renovation and restoration.

Lake Conway, that's what we're talking about with Nick today.

You know, when was it?

September 1st 23.

We initiated the draw down.

Of course, a lot of planning that went into it before that.

So we're roughly, halfway through the five year announced time frame for for the Lake Conway renovation and restoration.

Thought it'd be a good time to check in with Nick, so.

Nick.

Hey, man, we're.

How how are we doing?

Two, two and a half years into a five year project.

What's going on out there?

How's it going?

It's going great.

I'm.

I'm pleased with where we're at.

You know, last time we taped a podcast, we were about to.

You know, we were in the process of the dam being out for bid.

That's right.

And and getting a contractor in place.

We had our permits in place, getting a contractor on and finally starting that that dam work.

And so fast forward now to the January and, things are rolling.

Things are looking pretty pretty different down there.

I see you got a smile on your face.

Which is always good.

I mean, you know, obviously a lot of challenges with a project, I. It's huge.

I mean, you know, we've done a lot of lake renovations in Arkansas, but nothing to the, you know, scale of 6700 acre Lake Conway, the, the largest gaming fish lake in the state.

So to see you smile, I mean, I know again, overcoming challenges will make people smile.

Nick, I, I got to tell you, just me personally is an outsider.

Is an outsider.

Not in the fisheries Division, not in our operations division.

Not a construction guy, you know, but, man, that bid was awarded.

What, in August is that?

Right?

When we open bids, I was.

Yeah.

And then.

And so there was like a process there for a month or so, like going over the contract with a fine tooth comb.

Our people and, and, and the contractor that that won the bid making sure, you know, hey, you know, does your definition of this is the same as my definition is so, so so anyway, so like you're talking about into September before they were ever even cut loose.

My gosh though man.

Like I went out there in October and then like some of the imagery I'm seeing drones and still photos that y'all were sending in, they are getting after it.

Yeah, technically.

Technically they were not under contract starting work until end of October.

Okay.

So it was the end of the end of October, early November.

So they've only actually been out there for about ten weeks.

And it is it is impressive what they've accomplished.

It it really is.

I know on some of the the imagery I saw and like, look, if you're not familiar with the lake, I mean you're like, oh, that looks like a construction site.

Looks like a bunch of dirt and rock, you know, but like the the dam, the spillway structure is like you can see the out taking shape in the dirt is taking shape halfway, but so, you know, we have our primary dam that was in place that's all been torn out and removed.

It's, you know, within kind of a nice bedrock spot.

So not a whole lot of dirt work to be done there.

Right.

And so that whole structure has been removed.

They've trucked in B stone and got it compacted.

And so the whole base is ready and set to go.

And then we have our auxiliary structure where they did have to kind of build a earthen dam out in front of it, breached the levee and start kind of that's what you're seeing.

That's kind of.

Yeah.

I mean, and so all that dirt work's been chugging along on that and that B stones down and they've been, they've been doing a bunch of other dirt work.

You know, back behind the levee and yeah, it's really taking shape.

Well, on the, on the fisheries side of things, habitat side of things.

Pick up where we left off when I think the last time you were here and we recorded the podcast, we either were about to or had just wrapped up the mulching of the boat lanes.

And so those, you know, they're wide, they're they're clean, they're ready to go pick us up there.

And what's happened over the intervening, you know, 4 to 5 months since you were here last.

Yeah.

So same thing.

We had our contractors come in, in May.

We had kind of a wet June, but basically July, August, those boat laying contractors came in and mulched all 30 miles and got after it.

Yeah, in a hurry and got it all cleaned out.

And then the plan from the beginning was to actually mark those boat lanes with utility poles in the wet.

So they finished up their mulching, they packed up, went home.

We'll see you when there's water in the lake.

Got to finish out that job.

And so that's been at a kind of a planned standstill.

Sure.

Until we get into the rainy season this spring, there's water in the lake.

They can get in there with their barges and and do that work.

And, contractor, gave us a pretty ambitious timeline, in my opinion.

But after seeing what they accomplished with the mulching, I believe you're a believer now.

Yeah, we got about 1100 posts to drive.

Holy cow.

And, it sounds they're going to be able to do it in a in a hurry.

So, what is that that to go that that what is it going to look like?

I mean, they'll have a barge.

I mean, obviously these utility poles are going to have to drive them down in the ground.

Is there like a, like, you know, some kind of pile driver or, or some kind of mechanism on top of that barge?

How does that what does that look like?

They got a they got a big old barge and that they can carry I think 200 poles on at times.

The water, they need water.

The barge actually comes in three pieces to go to get it here.

And then they like put it together on site.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, it's I'm I'm looking forward to it.

Just here's what see what it looks like to kind of really see what this operation missing in action.

Yeah.

And so you know that's happen.

And then from a, you know, other habitat type activities, we had kind of come off some additional, helicopter work in the spring, last spring, during the last podcast.

Yeah.

And then since then, this, this October, we did another, agforce habitat push where we built about 150 more of these wooden, lean two structures across five different areas of the lake.

The use it was just a five hour drive down highway 89 right off the Interstate 40 exit and, east, you'll see them out there to your left.

It was just a follow up of some work that we had started.

The prior went right.

And, we're really efficient in getting those out.

And those are those are, you know, four by six by eight foot hardwood timbers.

And so they're going to they're going to last long.

Yeah.

They're treated right.

I mean, no, no, they're not they're not treated okay.

No.

But they are but they're but they're hardwood and substantial enough.

They're going to not not break down like a Christmas tree.

And so I mean those we really keyed in on a bunch of different aspects of the fact that it is robust.

It's going to last a long time.

But it is still complex enough.

Has overhead covered to serve as good habitat, but it's not so complex that it's really hard to fish where you're getting hung up constantly.

So it's a balance, all those things, a lot of them are associated with the different turns of the original Creek channel, where fish are going to kind of want to hold in the summer after anyways.

So a lot of thought went into the placement of these structures.

So that's that's what we did in October, about 150 of those.

And then the last couple months, we've been distributing these concrete spawning discs.

Yeah, we were actually free to video and photos of making those, which was an interesting process, like, literally lining up, about plastic for fish, plant planter trays.

Yeah.

And then the concrete truck, you know, comes behind and drops like, it's almost like pouring, pour water in your pet bowl because it's not a very big target to hit.

Yeah.

But, man, y'all were incredibly efficient with that.

Just a three man operation in the concrete guy, right?

Yeah.

I mean, in the in the planning phases of of the habitat aspect of the project, it was always, you know, we have a lot of homeowners on the lake.

Some of them are interested in fishing and some are some are interested in doing habitat work and some are, how do we get resources into their hands?

How to how do we equip them to do the work, help them do the work they want to do?

How do we do it efficiently?

How do we do it realistically and and cost effective?

And and this is where that idea kind of sprung from.

And and you know, especially once we aligned ourself with, a local concrete company that have partnered with us to donate the concrete.

I mean, once we bought them casts.

Yeah.

And the concrete's free and it's it's incredibly efficient to get these things poured.

It's really cheap.

And every time we do another pour, it's that much cheaper.

I think it's cost us like $0.25 a structure.

Wow.

Well, it just keeps going down every time.

And hundreds of them, right?

Yeah.

And we've made, I guess, over 1200 of these things.

And you stop in any time soon and you tell me, like these landowners around the lake, they just scooped them up, like.

Like they pretty much wiped you out of your first, like, set that you poured.

Yeah.

So we we finally, you know, we got to stockpile like, 800 or so.

And finally we're to a point where we were ready to make them available to the public.

And put out a sign up and started coordinating with people for pickups.

And we're allowing homeowners on the lake to, at least for now, have take 30 of these things.

And and we got the associated gravel on site to, to put gravel in these little trays.

Right.

And yeah, we've given away, about a thousand.

No, man.

Wow.

And yeah, no, no end in sight.

I mean, it's just it's so efficient, so cheap for us to make or as long as people still want to come, come to us and pick them up and put them out themselves where they want them, we're just going to we're going to, you know, keep making them.

I was I was really amazed, you know, we had coordinated for, for our crew to come out there and shoot some video and still photos of it.

And we got there pretty early and, and I was thinking, oh, well, we'll have, you know, a couple of hours to, you know, to shoot this.

And it's like, yeah, we're done in about 20 minutes.

It was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I mean, pretty even even pickup, you know, we we, we let them dry and then we get them out of their cars and stack them 32 a pallet.

So when somebody calls drive the tractor over there, you use the tractor to put the pallet and they're, they're off and on their way, loaded in their truck, on their trailer, on gravel and, and get home and start placing those things the way they want to.

Well, speaking of homeowners around the lake, I know we have done a lot of outreach direct and then of course, indirect through media and things like that to let folks know.

But this was an opportunity for, for some of those homeowners to, improve, not only structures like docks, which we have to permit, but with it being our lake, but also to get rid of dilapidated structures and things like that.

And we kind of that, that deadline for removal was recently right at the end of end of this calendar year.

Correct?

Yeah.

And that was kind of a long, a fairly long process.

You know, we we did our initial, assessments of all the docks and boathouses on the lake, in July of June, July of 2024 and had defined criteria of what a condemned structure was, and all condemned structures were posted.

We sent out certified letters to homeowners, and initially gave them until this gave them 12 months until this past July to either remove those structures or get them repaired to a safe condition.

We ended up extending that from July to the end of the calendar year.

And so now we're past that deadline as we speak.

We have, crew actively out in the lake doing removals of condemned structures that were not repaired or removed by the homeowner.

And that's, you know, I don't have a two date number of of what we're dealing with, the initial, number of structures that were considered which were taken down was 175.

Certainly people made removals and made repairs.

So that number, that number is not 175 anymore, but don't have, the number right now, but we're just going to keep chugging along and keep keep removing those, you know, as we go.

I think that speaks to the adaptability and the flexibility of this whole process.

Right.

You know, yes, we have a plan.

We came in and, you know, here's the here's our timeline, here's what we're thinking.

But as you said, like you gave folks initially a year to work on those and then said, you know, hey, you got another six months, you know, I mean, and I'm sure environmental factors like rain or lack of rain probably fed into that a little bit.

I don't know, I mean, yeah, I mean, the fact is, is that that first summer, even though we got it down a good amount, eight foot and it looked dry and beautiful out there and people were wondering why they weren't seeing game and fish out there doing work.

It's because the ground conditions weren't great.

We knew we wouldn't be able to get out there during that first summer with heavy equipment or ATVs doing work.

But even for the homeowners along the shorelines, there was that first summer, there was still a lot of areas that still soupy, just were not super friendly to to be doing work.

And then last summer, you know, we had a, a deadline of July.

Well, we got a bunch of rain in February that filled the lake up.

And then we got a really unusual amount in June.

Yeah.

And so come that July deadline, there just wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for people to actually do that work.

Now, from the day that was extended to January 1st of this year, we have had perfect conditions.

Every single one of those six months.

If you're, a hunter, especially your duck hunters.

Yeah, specifically, you probably realize the lake been been quite dry.

Lake's been down ten foot.

Have had great conditions for people to be doing that work, including including us.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Well, so what's, what's next?

Where where do we stand now?

Know you got a public meeting coming up?

Shortly.

January 27th to Tuesday night.

Yes.

Mayflower High School cafeteria again, is that correct?

Okay.

What what are just just an update for folks.

I mean, it's going to be a pretty quick meeting, just just giving folks an update.

You know, a lot of content that's going to be in this podcast.

Yeah.

You know, what's our last meeting?

Was back in June.

So what's happened since June?

And what can people expect over the next, you know, six months or so?

There would might be attended to say, oh, well, I've heard I've heard Nick, give us the report, the update on the podcast here.

Why would I want to get.

Well, I would encourage you, especially if you've got questions or any concerns.

This is a great opportunity to get face to face with you and other game and fish staff who are working on this project, so don't think you've heard everything you're going to hear.

They're here at the podcast.

I don't want to we don't want to steal the thunder from the public meeting, but he and I, you have you have face to face conversations with people literally every day about Lake Conway and just kind of one spot to find you.

And I will say, if it hasn't been stressed enough and we're rolling.

So the public meetings, not for another three weeks.

Right.

As long as we have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can change in three weeks.

You know, to to that point, Nick, I think that was one message we talked about before we started recording that you really want people to know that, like, look, if you're going to do some habitat work at your house, you know, around your dock that's hopefully been repaired or removed if it was condemned, you better get busy.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, we're we're just as interested in getting water back in the lake, permanently as, as as much as anybody else.

And, we are absolutely on, on track on, on timeline for the five year timeline.

And I, I'd be willing to say we're we're ahead of schedule right now.

Now, as I said, anything can change.

We're coming into the wet season.

We firmly knock on wood here.

And so, you know, if there's folks sitting at home that had ideas about doing work, in the lake, you know, we got outstanding permits for people still wanting to do some excavation and things like that.

Just don't assume that you got the full five years.

I mean, we're we're going to keep this rolling as fast as nature allows us to.

Well, and, you know, we are coming up as, as this podcast is out, we are coming into what is typically a fairly wet time of year that could slow things down, perhaps on some of the construction, but but likely as we get into the summertime things, it's going to dry out.

It's what it does.

It gets hot, water evaporates.

And so I guess, the take home message, Lake Conway homeowners is this is the 2026 is the year to do that habitat work on your spot.

Yeah.

If you haven't already get get to it.

We are going to try to be, you know, providing more resources.

So part of that habitat initial habitat.

Sign up with the concrete desks.

We also had a sign up for AGF sea installed gravel beds, where we would intend to come when there's some water in the lake with our habitat, barges and gravel to put in that to, to put some gravel in that spot.

Obviously that takes a whole lot more time and money for us.

So, you know, we're making multiple thousands of these discs for people to pick up and take home and, and do the work themselves.

We're definitely can't fill, you know, 4 or 500 requests of these things, but we're going to we're going to build as many of those as we can feasibly build for folks.

And then, we do intend between now and summertime when it starts getting hot, hosting some, some kind of habitat community habitat build days over there at Pierce Creek, where folks can show up and there'll be a variety of habitat materials available to folks to, to build, build what they want, throw it on the trail or take it home and place it.

Just trying to trying to equip people get resources in there.

Yeah I mean like we're we're we're doing a lot of work and also providing materials and resources for people to, to do some work and, and, and sweeten their honey hole.

Right.

Exactly.

And you know, I want to stress that, you know, it's not it's not me trying to pass the buck on the, no, it's the fact is we got plenty of homeowners that are just flat out not interested in that kind of work.

And, and that's okay.

People that, that, that are interested in it might have very specific particular things in mind of how they would want to do it.

And we want to give people that freedom.

Yeah, to make those decisions versus us showing up and just, well, putting habitat.

You were out in residential.

You were talking about the planning and, and foresight that went into like these lean, lean to structures that that we built the game and fish building out in the lake.

But you're talking about like how you're trying to balance between we want, really complex structure that really serves fish, and we want to put it in a spot where fish would probably congregate anyway, but we don't want it to be so complex that you get your lures on that wall there.

Those homeowners might kind of have some of their own, like, kind of ideas about what they want to fish around.

And if they don't, I mean, I consult with homeowners on that type of topic all the time.

Yeah, I, I'm gladly be a sounding board for that type stuff and and and and be a resource for folks just talking on the phone about people that know they want to do work but don't really know quite yet what that looks like.

I can we can work together and walk through that awesome last question, Nick.

I think, you know, one thing we haven't really touched on facilities, boat ramps and that type of hard infrastructure that's part of this.

Like, should we expect to see some of that going on, you know, kind of in the background?

Not like necessarily that's not in the lake bed, but like those, you know, again, boat ramps or parking lots and things like that.

That's something we're going to see over the next this year or two.

I mean is yeah, yeah, I expect to see that work started in, I mean, there's been small things started thus far.

Sure.

Definitely expect to see some of that work initiating in 2026.

Like you said, it's it's one of the things associated with the project that are at least dependent on water levels.

So.

Right.

It's a nice luxury to have that.

We can we get doing that stuff as they align, logistically with, with everything we're trying to accomplish.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you told me one of the reasons that work wasn't necessarily it's it's kind of planned to be one of the last steps of the process, because we're using the heck out of those ramps with, like, heavy equipment and, like, you know, we're basically tearing it up as not on purpose, but we're putting heavy use on it.

And we didn't want to build a brand new boat ramp and then, you know, run heavy equipment over to potentially damage the Pierce Creek boat ramp.

Right now, the parking lot there has globs of concrete everywhere of us of us, pouring these discs all the time.

Sure.

Yeah.

Definitely don't want to be doing that type of stuff on a new facility.

Right.

Well, thanks so much for the update and thanks for all the work that you and other fisheries and operations and staff and, and contract vendors are doing out there a lot, a lot of balls in the air.

You're juggling right now.

But, the performance has been, a good one thus far.

And expect to see more great things in the coming months.

And boy, can't wait to get back out on Lake Conway.

Me too.

I can't believe that it.

I can't believe that we're two and a half years into it as we speak right now.

Seemed like only yesterday we were out at the dam and cranking that first gate open.

Yeah.

You know, we, like I said, we want to get water back in here just, just as quickly as anybody else does.

And and, you know, if we can do it in a way, where we're shortening that timeline on the fish population side of things.

Sure.

We want to make sure we're doing that.

So you said it loud and clear.

We want water back in there.

As much or more than anybody else does.

And ultimately, we want to see people, with fish on the end of their line out of Lake Conway sooner rather than later.

Absolutely.

All right.

Nick Felts, thanks so much, man.

Appreciate your time today.

Thank you all for listening to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast.

We'll talk to you next time.