Outside Bend

Most crayfish are generalists by their very nature- a broad food base and a wide range of acceptable habitats. The ones that do have special requirements- large boulders, cool water temps, etc- probably aren't commercially viable anyway- bait dealers want to produce generalist species because they're cheaper and easier to raise in the first place. I wish there was a happy medium, I'm just not seeing it.

I thought more about it this afternoon, and I guess I can't figure how the ban is an attempt to put the screws to small businesses. There's lots of small businessfolks on this board who rely on our state's streams and sportfish to earn a living. Why should a guide's business be compromised because a bait dealer wants to sell crayfish? Seems just as easy to me to say that doing nothing, and maintaining the status quo, screws small businesses just as much. Like I said in an earlier post I love patronizing small businesses, I just think we should craft stewardship policy based on the best science, not what's best for small business owners. There's plenty of mom-and-pop logging outfits or gravel mining operations in the Ozarks, that doesn't mean we give them carte blanche to use the resource in whatever way that makes them the most money. IMO this petition has nothing to do with conservation and everything with businesses trying to protect their bottom line. There's nothing wrong with that, it's what businesses do in order to survive. But we shouldn't pretend it serves anything more than their own interests.

Congratulations!

I understand the sentiment R, and it's not a problem restricted to the Ozarks- invasive crayfish have been found in northern and western Missouri, too. It is a little tougher to catch crayfish in turbid north Missouri streams, but I've found minnow traps baited with dog food or liver work pretty well in any stream or pond that has crayfish. The problem is that lots of our native species are the ones causing the problem. You move one species the next watershed east or west, and you may be creating major problems. Species native to the Bootheel have been found pushing out crayfish in prairie streams and wetlands, crayfish from the Black river have been found pushing native species out of the St. Francis, species native to the White River are pushing natives out of the Spring River. Banning crayfish from out of state doesn't solve the problem. I'm not opposed to using crayfish as bait. Just use them where you found them, and don't move them between watersheds.

I guess I don't see how that's MDC's problem. They asked bait dealers for input, bait dealers provided input, MDC crafted policy based in large part off the bait dealer's input. That's how the system's supposed to work. If bait dealers sandbagged the information they supplied MDC, it's on them. They made the bed, they can lie in it.

You've got it backwards. The science supporting the ban has been around for 15 years or more, the suspension of the ban was the result of outcry from bait shop owners and the aquaculture industry. The "knee-jerk reaction," wasn't creating the ban, it was lifting it. You think Bass Pro and Cabela's are losing so much money to Paul's Bait and Tackle that they need to coerce MDC into crafting policy that helps push them out of business? Really? Other things could be affecting crayfish and streams, but we know invasive crayfish are. It's been documented. If we know what the problem is, why shouldn't we remedy it? There are concessions to sell crayfish for food use or biological experiments, and that makes sense. If you're selling something for someone to eat or experiment with, you have to identify what it is you're selling. Bait dealers aren't required to, and haven't shown much interest in learning. MDC tried the carrot, it didn't work. I love Paul's, my family's been going there for three generations now. I genuinely wish them the best- but I don't think crayfish sales are going to save their business.

Slick tie, Brian, I'll have to spin some up for smallies

Drought's a natural component of the Ozarks, there's nothing we can do to control/affect it, and in all likelihood, our sport fish will come out of it fine. Sorta like OTF said- hard to complain about poor fishing here when folks in the southeast have been suffering a pretty severe drought over the past several years, and folks in the rockies and southwest are bracing for what could be a pretty heinous fire season. There's folks out there who would LOVE if their biggest concern was catching 12" smallmouth instead of 17" smallmouth, just trying to give a little perspective

Fish were nesting in the Jacks Fork back toward the beginning of April, and they may be wrapping up on the upper Gasconade. Still a nice time of year to float, though Good luck!

http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills121/billpdf/intro/HCR0052I.PDF - link to the legislation.

The negative action was disobeying administrators requests and creating a distraction for the rest of the students. Administrators told them not to pull any pranks, they did it anyway. If my boss tells me not to do something, I don't do it- or I do it anyway, and face the consequences. It doesn't bug me that the kids pulled the prank or broke the rules. What bugs me is they don't seem inclined to face the repercussions, and instead of teaching them that it's part of being an adult, folks are trying to make an exception for them.

This. Whether you agree with it or not most schools look poorly on senior pranks- liability issues and a distraction from education. Most administrators make it clear to the student body that pranks will not be tolerated, and that there will be punishment for students who pull them. I think it was a harmless prank- but we're all responsible for our actions. I'd imagine these kids had an idea of what was at stake, and did it anyway- they ought to face the consequences. IMO that lesson is being muted by all the whining about political correctness.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the import/export of polar bear trophies. IMO it seems a lot of these "fixes" address pretty minor problems. Public lands are already managed for multiple use, more legislation enshrining that ideal seems redundant. The EPA component seems like mental gymnastics- lead is lead, and it seems pretty arbitrary to say EPA can regulate it if it's in soil or water or gas, but can't regulate it if we shape it into bullets or pellets. The polar bear issue just leaves me shaking my head- I guess I just didn't realize how important this issue was. I guess I figured, given the current economic climate, there wasn't a huge constituency of folks shelling out the dough to go on a polar bear hunt. Considering all the other issues on our legislator's plates, it seems trivial to take this up, and only reinforces to me how vapid many of our elected officials truly are. Only time will tell whether this legislation is of any benefit to sportsmen. But to me, the fact this was the best they could come up with, and the most they could agree on, says more about our Congress than the "issues" they're attempting to tackle.

Rendezvous around Lake of the Ozarks instead- about equidistant drive time between St. Louis and KC, and lots more opportunities. Saline Valley CA is close- typical Ozark stream, lots of public access, dunno if they allow camping or not but it'd be an easy day trip if you base camp in or around Osage Beach. Lots of other places in the area, and Bennett's close too.

Some are, some aren't, some are just as sensitive as the native species- but there's other factors, too. A large-bodied nonnative is going to push smaller native species out of prime hiding and feeding areas, leaving the natives more vulnerable to predators. The nonnatives themselves may prey on the native species. They may introduce disease organisms to which the native species aren't adapted. They may spawn at different times of year which allows their offspring a head start, or their offspring may grow faster than the offspring of the natives... These species survived perfectly well for millennia before we began shuffling them around. And it's unlikely many of these species would've ever encountered one another in nature- had people not intervened. It's blaming the victim- the problem isn't that the native species are poorly suited to their native habitat, the problem is we keep altering their native habitat. Some native species- geese, raccoons, coyotes- easily adapt to our ecosystem disturbances. Other critters haven't adapted nearly so well. Native Americans declined enormously after European contact- not because they were pussies or maladapted to the environment, but because that environment was rapidly changing, and there were a whole host of things going on they hadn't had to deal with before. They are programmed to survive in their native range, just not every alteration that possibly comes their way. These organisms evolved without the competition of other species, so there's no genetic adaptation to competing with other species. Just like Missouri stream organisms aren't well adapted to saltwater conditions- you can only adapt to the environment you're in, not every possible environmental permutation out there.

I've been out of town, so I'll respond in bits and pieces. Two native crayfish species in the St. Francis watershed are heading towards federally Threatened status due to introductions of a crayfish native to the Black River watershed. National Park Service folks are worried about a different invasive crayfish that recently cropped up on the Eleven Point, and another species that has been introduced to some of the springs on the Current and Jacks Fork. Wetland managers on the state's waterfowl areas are concerned about yet another introduced species, native to the bootheel, that has been cropping up in west and northwest Missouri. It's a concern because we are seeing non-native crayfish impact our watersheds. One of the biggest aquaculture species spends only a couple weeks a year above ground- the rest of the time it's in a burrow. As much as our smallmouth resources depend on a stream's crayfish prey base, I'd hate to think how smallie populations would react if their primary food source were available only two months outta the year. This state also has a ton of small impoundments with earthen dams, and some of these species have been known to cause dam failures with their burrowing. Add to that non-economic things like the decline of native critters, some of which don't exist anywhere else on the planet, and IMO it's justification enough. I agree it seems like a trivial rule. But it does a whole lot of good for our state's streams while negatively impacting relatively few folks- to me that's a win. And like folks have pointed out, it's a non sequitur to whine about MDC's new rules because DNR or EPA isn't pushing on big polluters. Gee, a politically independent body can enact more stringent conservation measures than two agencies which rely directly on legislative funding? Who'd a thunk? If you want water quality issues taken seriously at the state and federal level, elect folks who will make water quality issues a priority. They hold the purse strings.

There's three species of rock bass in the state- northern rock bass, shadow bass, and ozark bass.

Carte blanche? I'd like to see browns stocked in the Little Piney. I'd also love to see MDC develop more temperature-tolerant strains of brown and rainbow trout- the genetics are available in some populations of those species, and it'd open up a whole lot more stream miles that may be suitable trout habitat. I've thought that muskellunge could do alright in some of our cooler rivers, but like Gavin and others have said, there's a lot of hurdles in the way. Still, it'd be cool hooking up with or paddling next to a 4 foot long muskie on the middle Current...

Letting folks just send in a photo does seem pretty lax, but it also sounds more like a sweepstakes than a bounty- send in the pic and you get a chancat the $200 gift card, as well as a bunch of other prizes. If it helps raise awareness and reduce the problems, I'm all for it. The dangerous things about these sorts of programs is that it can backfire- you can wind up creating a constituency for the resource. MDC's wrestling it right now- their feral hog policy has created a group of hunters who really enjoy going out in killing them, to the point where there's evidence of they're being stocked. If folks in MD come to the conclusion snakeheads are a viable sport species, the entire bounty/ eradication program may be that much harder to implement.

Glad to hear you took the kids out, and glad to hear they caught a few!

You'll occasionally get a white bass with broken lines like a hybrid, and to me it seems more likely there'd be white bass in Suson as opposed to hybrids. But like Wrench said, it's not all that uncommon for MDC to stock a few this n' that in some lakes without advertising it- particularly lakes with unbalanced fish populations- too many suckers or shad, or stunted populations of bass/bluegill/crappie. That they didn't have crappie listed doesn't surprise me in the least- MDC rarely stocks crappie in small impoundments, but they frequently find their way there by anglers.

Freshly molted crayfish can also be very vividly colored. Most likely it was the golden crayfish, possibly Harrison's or the belted crayfish, which are native only to the Meramec Watershed.

I haven't read the thread. But has anyone advocated a permit system? You buy your daily trout tag, then have the option of a trophy tag for a couple extra bucks, allowing you to keep X number of fish over 18" for the day. It allows anglers to keep a trophy, generates funds for the trout program, and would help MDC quantify angling pressure on trophy fish (i.e., put a value on trophy fisheries, potentially help inform stocking/management/regulation regimes).

Yes, buffalo are native to the Mississippi River basin.

Not to mention I've never seen a natural nymph with a big glittering glob on the top of their head. I want to say most beadheads ride with the point down, but I've never really paid attention, either. Fish like them, and apparently they're not paying attention to the orientation of the hook's point, either