From the AGFC:

LITTLE ROCK - Nineteen changes in Arkansas fishing regulations in 2008 were approved by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission at its August monthly meeting in Little Rock.

The new regulations will go into effect on Jan. 1.

Nearly all of the suggested changes are related to a particular lake or area, and a couple with statewide effect are minor. The changes came after suggestions from anglers at public meetings around the state, from letters, e-mails and phone calls to AGFC offices and from the AGFC fisheries biologists.

One of the statewide measures will allow disabled persons with fishing licenses to fish in “Family Fishing Waters,” which are park and community ponds around the state limited to youth people and senior citizens for fishing. A disabled person may be accompanied by one fishing helper who has a current fishing license, according to Fisheries Chief Mike Armstrong.

The new fishing regulations:

1. Disable persons can fish in Family Fishing Waters.

2. Bullhead catfish added to the definition of bait fish that are allowed in the state. Minnows, goldfish, crawfish, shad, sculpins and small bream are some of the other designated bait fish.

3. Put Family Fishing regulations on Salem City Lake in Fulton County.

4. Remove the 13- to 16-inch protected slot limit on largemouth bass on Lake Hogue in Poinsett County.

5. Remove limits on white bass and hybrid striped bass on Lake Monticello. These fish were put into the lake by unknown persons contrary to AGFC management plans.

6. Put Family Fishing regulations on Armory Pond on the Southern Arkansas University campus in Magnolia.

7. Put Family Fishing regulations on Mattocks Park Lake in El Dorado.

8. Allow only barbed single point hooks for bait fishing in the Greers Ferry Tailwaters, the trout waters of the Little Red River.

9. Add the Cossatot River to Ouachita Zone Quality Streams for smallmouth bass with a daily limit of two bass 12 inches or longer.

10. Put a 20-inch minimum length limit on striped bass on Beaver Lake.

11. Require a trout permit to fish on the Lake Greeson Tailwaters, Little Missouri River, from Narrows Dam downstream to the Arkansas Highway 27 bridge.

12. Add the Buffalo River Lower Wilderness Area to Ozark Zone Quality Streams for smallmouth bass with a daily limit of one bass 18 inches or longer. The affected area would be from Clabber Creek near Rush downstream to the White River.

13. Put Family Fishing regulations on Mike Freeze England Community Pond, a new 14-acre facility in England.

14. Allow snagging for catfish on the Black River from the Missouri border to Spring River and on the St. Francis River from the Missouri border to Payneway in northeast Arkansas. Daily limit for snagging will be five catfish, only two of which can be flatheads. The season dates will be Jan. 1 through Feb. 15.

15. Reword the definitions of minimum length limits, maximum length limits, protected length limit and how to measure a fish’s length.

16. Restrict boat motors to 30 horsepower at the prop, on the Eleven Point River in northeast Arkansas.

17. Clarify the AGFC’s Family and Community Fishing Regulations.

18. Prohibit “passive fishing devices” on Lake June at Stamps. These include trotlines, yo-yos, jugs and other such fishing methods. Catfish limit on the lake would be lowered to five a day.

19. Limit bait used on Lake Norfork to farm-raised bait or bait caught in the wild from the lake itself. Bait such as shad brought in from other areas would be banned.