DeGray Lake

So, big deal for Arkansas.

I am actually headed to Lake DeGray for a trip, a half-a-day trip, with a supply company here in Arkansas.

There's like 24.

Clients, we've got 10 boats.

... and all that.

And so it was a great private school, and it was, um, near Lake DeGray in the Ouachita National Forest, uh, 30 minutes from Hot Springs.

Had a bunch of good-looking girls, and I thought, "God's calling me to Ouachita."

[laughs]

That's kind of when its range started to kind of decrease.

For example, pepper chiner used to occur in the Caddo River of Arkansas, and there was records of it like near the dam site of DeGray Lake.

And then in 1972, when they filled in that reservoir, pepper chiners haven't been found there since, at least in that locality.

So reservoir construction is probably one of the larger threats to the species, where we're seeing downstream flows from a reservoir that have super cold water that these coastal plain or Ouachita fishes aren't really adapted to living in.

You just want anything but Silverfield, right?

"Silverware is going to bless us with our first one in 11 season in decades," says Uncle Elroy at DeGray Lake.

We've heard so far, there's Silverfish-

Thank you, Uncle Elroy.