Restoration gives posterity a taste of greatness

Reactions are mixed to the news about the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s plan to renovate Lake Conway.

Most anglers that fish Lake Conway acknowledge that the lake’s fishing has deteriorated over time. They understand that the lake needs to be rehabilitated, and they understand rehabilitation requires the lake to be drained.

It will be dry for five years. That part is hard for many anglers to accept, especially older anglers who might not live long enough to fish it again. It’s also hard for children to accept that their elderly parents might not get to fish a lake that has been such a big part of their lives. They remember the fun they and their folks had fishing the lake in their heartier years. Losing that opportunity makes them understandably sad.

Many of those memories are from the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s when Lake Conway was in its prime or just past its prime.

If the Game and Fish Commission’s plan follows its blueprint, Lake Conway’s fishery will return to what it was in the 1970s. The lake will be offline for five years, and it will probably take another five years after it refills for its fish to reach sizes that interest anglers.

That is a long wait, but don’t tomorrow’s anglers deserve a chance to enjoy the Lake Conway that so many of us enjoyed in our younger years? I think they do, and I say that as an angler who is of an age at which I don’t take five and 10 years for granted.

I’ll ask the same question about some of our other aging and diminished resources, like Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area. That’s where I learned to hunt in 1971, and I remember its glory years in the 1970s and 1980s. The changes the Game and Fish Commission have made to rehabilitate the timber in Bayou Meto and other areas have inconvenienced many hunters. On the other hand, the paucity of ducks due to deteriorating habitat has also inconvenienced many hunters. People of my age will not see it again as it was. Our children won’t see it, either, but the generation after that probably will.

I enjoyed Bayou Meto duck hunting at its best. I enjoyed Lake Conway at its best. I want their greatness restored, and it makes me happy to know that our descendent sportsmen will have a chance to enjoy what I once had.

I have heard complaints from Lake Conway homeowners. The waterfront makes their property valuable and enjoyable. They don’t want to lose their waterfront. A dry lake makes their property less enjoyable, and it also makes it hard to sell.

A gentleman from Mayflower told me Thursday about a 70-year old man who recently bought a lot on Lake Conway, not knowing that the lake is about to disappear for five years. The man said his friend doesn’t want to build a home at his age not knowing if he will live to enjoy the lake when it returns, or if he will be healthy enough to enjoy the lake when it returns.

I’m not in his shoes, so I can’t relate. My only reference frame is that of an angler. I have seen the handwritten logs of the Lake Conway Fishing Club attesting to all of the 12- and 13-pound bass that members caught in the lake up to the early 1990s.

I remember fishing at Lake Conway with my grandparents in the 1970s. My grandfather didn’t have a boat, but he carried a 9.9-horsepower Johnson outboard in the trunk of his 1968 Chrysler Newport. We’d rent a boat at Lake Conway, buy a tube of crickets, and catch big bream in numbers so great to make us oblivious to the heat.

Pop and I loved Welch’s grape soda. My grandmother always sat in the middle, which put her in the line of fire.

“Bryan, you ready for a cold drink?” Pop would yell. “Gimme one!”

He’d whiz a can past my grandmother’s head. It burned her to a crisp, and oh, how she gloated when a wild throw put one in the water.

One of my greatest crappie fishing trips was on Lake Conway with Mark Roberts of Maumelle, and I’ll always remember the bass fishing trip on Memorial Day Saturday with Billy McCaghren of Mayflower. The fish were plentiful and big, and we had the entire lake to ourselves.

A renovated Lake Conway will provide those memories for those who follow us. I don’t care if they know what we sacrificed for them to have it. I just want them to have it.