Daily
Aggregate Limit (Maximum number of fish
allowed to be taken from midnight to
midnight)
75
Possession
Limit
2X Daily
Limit
Spearfishing
Limit
1/2 Daily Limit
Snagging Limit
1/2 Daily
Limit
Daily Limits and Size
Restrictions reflect variations in
species productivity and fishing pressure. A
daily limit includes the number of fish of one
species (or group of species) allowed to be taken
from midnight to the next midnight. Fishermen are
allowed to have only one daily limit of fish while
fishing or returning from a one day fishing
trip.
Minimum Length
Limit - The shortest length of a fish of a
designated species (measured from the front of
the lower jaw with the mouth closed to the tip
of the tail with tail lobes pressed together)
that an angler may keep. Fish
not meeting the minimum length requirement for a
particular water or species must be released
immediately into the water where caught. The
purpose of a minimum length limit is to maintain
a consistent breeding population of fish where
natural reproduction does not keep up with
fishing
pressure.
Protected Slot Limit - A
limit which prohibits anglers from keeping fish
within a designated size range of a species and
which requires those fish to be released
immediately into the waters where caught. The
purpose of establishing protected slot limits is
to promote fish growth to larger
sizes.
Fish Cleaning- While fishing in
waters designated as having a length or slot limit
on any kind of fish, you may not possess a fish
that has been filleted or had its head or tail
removed. Check your destination to see whether
length or slot limits apply.
Using Live Fish for Bait -
Using baitfish include bluntnose minnows, bullhead
minnows, chubs, crayfish, dace, fatheads, common
carp under six inches, small goldfish, shiners,
stonerollers, logperch (also called sand pike or
zebra minnows), shad, gar (other than alligator
gar), drum, bowfin under six inches, skipjack
herring, silversides (brook and inland), buffalo
(bigmouth, smallmouth, and black), river
carpsucker, sculpin (banded and Ozark) and bream
under four inches long. Bream longer than four
inches may be used as bait only if first taken by
hook and line and are subject to daily limit
restrictions.
With the exception of shad, baitfish
may not be taken in the area within 100 yards
below a dam.
During daylight hours, baitfish may
be taken using
seines no larger than 50 feet long
and four feet wide with ¼ inch mesh;
traps or lifts no larger than six
feet by six feet by three feet with ½ inch mesh
and with a throat size of two inches or smaller;
cast nets with a one inch (or
smaller) mesh;
shad trawl nets with one inch (or
smaller) mesh;
glass, plastic or wire mesh minnow
traps no larger than one gallon with a 1½ inch
(or smaller) throat;
hand-operated dip nets or lifts
with one inch (or smaller ) square bar mesh for
use while sportfishing. This method may be used
day or night. All other species of fish should
be immediately released.
A fishing
license is required to take bullfrogs. Bullfrogs
may be taken from noon, April 15 through December
31. Legal methods to take bullfrogs are using
hands, hand nets, hook and line, gig, spear, or
bow and arrow. The limit is 18 per day, meaning
from noon to noon.
The possession limit is 36. Bullfrogs may
not be sold. (Fish farmers may be exempted
from these
regulations).
Suckers include redhorse, hogsucker, white
and spotted suckers. The daily limit is 20, the
possession limit is 40. It is legal to take suckers by
sportfishing or, within their respective seasons,
hogging, snagging or gigging. See Fishing
Methods and Regulationsfor Hogging season. Suckers
may be snagged between sunrise and sunset, from April 1
to February 15. Gigging of suckers is allowed only
between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 midnight from September 15
to February 15.
Alligator snapping turtles (loggerheads)
or their eggs may not be taken from the wild or imported
into Arkansas. Contact the Fisheries Division
(501-223-6371) for possession
requirements.
Only one rod or pole may be used, and it
must be attended at all times, on many trout streams.
These include Beaver Lake tailwaters, Greers Ferry
tailwaters, Norfork tailwaters, Bull Shoals tailwaters
and Spavinaw Creek. No more than two rods or poles may
be used on Spring River, Blanchard Springs and the Lake
Greeson tailwaters. These must also be attended at all
times.
A trout permit is required to keep trout
from any state waters or to fish in the tailwaters below
Beaver Lake, Bull Shoals Lake, Lake Norfork, Greers
Ferry Lake or east of Highway 59 on Spavinaw Creek.
Anglers under 16 or holders of the $1,000 Lifetime
License don't need a trout permit.
Trout may not be driven, harassed or
pursued with noise, objects, boats or by wading to
concentrate them.
A guide may not give away his or her fish
if it causes the recipient to exceed his or her daily
limit.
In trout waters designated as
catch-and-release, baits such as marshmallows, salmon
eggs, and moldable substances (for example, POWER BAIT,®
POWER EGGS® or Zeke's Gold®) are not allowed. Baits like
these contribute to excessive mortality when the fish is
unhooked.
In catch-and-release waters, only
artificial lures with one, single barbless hooking point
per pole may be used. (In the brown trout
catch-and-release area in the Bull Shoals tailwaters, a
treble hook may be used in season. See the White
Riversection of Regulations for Flowing
Waters.) Trout must be released immediately to the
water. Check your destination in the Regulations
for Flowing Waters, to see whether it is
designated as a catch-and-release area or if any special
regulations apply.
Chumming is not allowed in trout waters
designated as catch and release. Chumming is defined as
follows: "to dislodge or deposit any substance not
attached to a hook which may attract fish." Check
your destination in the Regulations
for Flowing Waters, to see whether it is
designated as a catch-and-release area or if any special
regulations apply.
Anglers may not cull rainbow trout. Once
an angler has retained a rainbow trout on a stringer, in
a livewell or in a fish basket, then the rainbow trout
may not be subsequently released. The only exception is
that a rainbow trout longer than 16 inches may be
temporarily retained in a livewell for measuring,
weighing and photographing before being
released.
