The Arkansas Fishing Guidebook, which includes changes to regulations regarding Lake Monticello, is being delivered to bait shops and license dealers across Arkansas, but you can always ensure you have a copy of the regs at the ready by downloading your own copy to your phone. Downloadable versions of all Arkansas Game and Fish Commission regulations guidebooks are available at www.agfc.com/guidebooks.
The guidebook covers all public waters of The Natural State and includes illustrations of Arkansas’s most popular game fish to help with identification. A special section for Arkansas’s trout waters highlights maps of these famous trout-fishing destinations for anglers to find the best locations to launch a boat or walk to the water’s edge.
The most notable changes to Arkansas’s fishing regulations are the opening of Lake Monticello to harvest and refined harvest regulations on trout in the Norfork, Bull Shoals, Greers Ferry and Beaver tailwaters.
The limit for all trout in four major tailwaters of the state was changed in January as a result of trout stocking shortages caused by events in 2025. A flood at the Jim Hinkle Spring River State Fish Hatchery severely damaged much of the facility’s infrastructure and caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of rainbow trout. This was followed by a major die-off at Norfork National Fish Hatchery in late summer from low oxygen levels and poor water quality from natural stratification and excessive organic matter in Norfork Lake following a strong spring flood season there. The new regulations state that anglers may keep the following daily limits of trout:
BULL SHOALS DAM TO BOAT RAMP AT NORFORK ACCESS
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Anglers may keep two rainbow trout under 14 inches per day. All other trout must be released immediately.
NORFORK DAM TO BOAT RAMP AT NORFORK ACCESS (WHITE RIVER)
Anglers may keep two rainbow trout under 14 inches per day. All other trout must be released immediately.
NORFORK BOAT ACCESS TO ARKANSAS HIGHWAY 58 BRIDGE AT GUION (WHITE RIVER)
Anglers may keep two trout, which may be two rainbow trout under 14 inches or one rainbow trout under 14 inches and one of the following: one rainbow or brook trout longer than 14 inches, or one brown, cutthroat or tiger trout longer than 24 inches. All other trout must be released immediately.
GREERS FERRY TAILWATER
Anglers may keep two trout under 14 inches per day. All other trout must be released immediately.
BEAVER TAILWATER
Anglers may keep two trout under 14 inches per day. All other trout must be released immediately.
Also passed in January, strict catch-and-release regulations on bass and crappie at Lake Monticello have been replaced with new harvest opportunities to help manage the growing fishery.
Lake Monticello was drawn down by the city of Monticello in 2019 to repair the lake’s levee, and the commission worked with the city to complete a major renovation to foster this once trophy bass and crappie fishing destination. Since its refilling began in 2022, the lake has been heavily stocked with forage species and Florida bass. The crappie in the lake have also seen a huge spike in growth since the lake’s renovation, and both species are ready for conservative harvest to keep populations healthy and growth rates high.
On Lake Monticello, anglers may keep the following:
Largemouth Bass Daily Limit: five bass, with only one bass being 16 inches or longer.
Crappie Daily Limit: 15 crappie, with no more than seven of those fish being 12 inches or longer.
Bream Daily Limit: 50 (all species combined).
Catfish Daily Limit: 10 (all species combined).
Randy Cellers is an assistant chief of communications for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.