Once my grandparents took my brother, my parents, and me to a hatchery in Missouri for Father's Day. This particular hatchery allowed fishing in some of the pools and Grandpa offered to pay for whatever my brother and I caught. These trout were big and hungry! I'm not sure the hooks even hit the water when cast before we'd caught the fattest, most expensive fish ever! My poor Grandpa honored his word but we never went back!
I suppose I expected something similar in Lonoke. The Joe Hogan Fish Hatchery is the largest state owned hatchery in the nation. There isn't a lot of information online but I encourage those interested in visiting the Arkansas Game & Fish website (http://www.agfc.com) for details on this and other sites. There is an old visitor's center on site (2nd building, no the first. although the people housed in the first building are very good at pointing people to the correct building...hypothetically) showcasing live fish and taxidermy'd creatures native to the state. There is a "lovely" mobile hanging from the ceiling made of stuffed Arkansas fish. Lovely??
The hatchery is self guided and HUGE! The day was beautiful and Logan and I were the only visitors in sight. The map was a bit confusing so we didn't find observation deck or the spawning tanks. (Spawning tanks are the concrete pools I remembered from other hatcheries.) The sign outside the visitors center encourages onlookers to keep quiet and still in order to notice other creatures visiting the hatchery. What a perfect reminder to slow down and notice nature! The hatchery is made up of acres and acres of small square ponds (probably the size of 4 Olympic sized pools each) laid out like a checkerboard. There are gravel roads between each pond and strips of grass and wildflowers bordering each pond. Logan and I sat in a strip of clovers and watched one pond for about 20 minutes. We saw jumping fish, birds skimming the water, a little water snake, bees landing on the clover flowers, and heard frogs singing all around us.
While sitting still I noticed a little water snake (years at camp taught me the difference between cotton mouths and water snakes...no worries, folks!) peeking its head up nearby. I tried to point it out to Logan but caused too much movement and the snake popped back underneath the water. Logan kept saying "C'mon little buddy! I love you!" I explained that we had made too much noise and probably scared the snake away. Logan looked very confused and said "But I didn't even say boo!?"
I'd like to return in the future, perhaps with a tour guide to explain what we were seeing and to show us the full site. While we didn't see fish flipping and flopping like I'd expected, the day was a huge win! I truly enjoyed the peaceful moments with Logan!
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