Outside Bend

I guess I see it from a couple different angles. Missouri is blessed with its aquatic resources. Within a little more than an hour's drive I can be fishing for smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, spotted bass, white crappie, black crappie, rainbow trout, brown trout, rock bass, bluegill, white bass, common carp, silver carp, freshwater drum, walleye, sauger, and a handful of other game species. And be doing it on some of the prettiest water you'll find anywhere. For the most part I believe our waters are well managed. Sure there's room for improvement at the margins, but for the most part MDC makes opportunities available for meat anglers, gear guys, fly guys, bowfishing guys, atlatl guys- they're overall pretty accommodating. You have wild trout areas, moderately stocked trophy trout areas, and the heavily stocked trout parks. The different regulation regimes may be a hassle to some, but to me it's a way of maximizing opportunity to the greatest number of anglers. But although I love the Ozarks' game fishing opportunities, to me it's not what makes the region unique. Let's face it- you can find better fishing for smallmouth or walleye or muskies or trout elsewhere. But the ecosystem in our own backyard doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet. This is the only place on the planet you can find the Freckled Crayfish, the Missouri saddled darter, the Ozark hellbender, and a number of other species. The wooded uplands of the Missouri Ozarks produce a substantial number of the songbirds we see in our backyards- not just within the state, but within the entire midwest. That little old lady watching birds in Chicago or Memphis is likely looking at animals hatched near Salem and West Plains. The reality is that this is one of the most biologically diverse regions west of the Mississippi River. I guess my point is that while we should celebrate what we have, we shouldn't rest on our laurels. Our streams and other aquatic resources still have a lot of threats- sand and gravel mining, lead and natural gas exploitation, poor land use practices, losses in stream access, sewage/septic issues, etc. That we're happy where we are simply means we need to be vigilant to keep what we have.

Makes one wonder what goes on in the Dead Drift Fly Shop after hours....

I'm glad I've been gone the last four days

As with your other projects, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out!

It's good to see brookies making inroads back into their own native habitat, and I hope these gains aren't dashed by the elephant in the room. But it does demonstrate things can change, if society has the will to do it. Folks get sentimental about native fish and wild streams. Not so much about smokestacks and open-pit mines.

Pretty awesome photos! I've often wondered what it'd be like diving many of the state's springs, particularly Cave Spring on the Current. Definitely a different way to look at the waters we fish

Nice photos, and pretty fish! I'll get up there one of these days...

I'm not saying I agree with it Cricket, but I think it is part of the reality of the situation. Change of venue helps with the conviction, but the citation's gonna be in person. It's easier ticketing a stoned 20 year old from out of town than a guy you're gonna see at the next PTA meeting or who's kid plays high school basketball with yours. Agents generally live in the communities they're patrolling, and while I agree it's no excuse to turn a blind eye, I also recognize it'd be a tough gig. Some agents are simply more willing to negotiate that fine line than others. From a more practical standpoint, it's probably just easier busting drug crimes than investigating poachers. Unless the agent actually witnesses the poacher taking game, or finds gigged gamefish in the boat, I'm not sure he has enough to get a solid conviction.

Safer busting an out-of-towner for pot than a local entrenched in the good ol' boy network.

Awesome!

True- and MDC won't be paying taxes. But you can also factor in area maintenance, roads/parking lots/signage, fish, habitat, invertebrate surveys and other conservation-related work. No matter how you slice it, it's a pretty big price tag for an area that at any moment only holds about a thousand fish, and which is only fished by a few hundred anglers a year.

I don't know Bass Pro's inner workings, but I know when they opened the store here in Columbia there were rumors the company was getting over-extended. Opening too many branch stores too rapidly instead of focusing on catalog sales and the flagship stores. Looking at the map they have something like 50-60 stores in the US and Canada now, somewhere around twice as many. Maybe they were just overly ambitious, and they're scaling back on fishing and focusing on their own label as a cost-saving measure. I'm just ruminating now

Lots of the trout projects are very visible and very promoted by MDC. That doesn't mean the agency isn't spending millions working with private landowners to stabilize streambanks, create viable riparian corridors, and stabilize shifting gravel beds. They spend a lot of federal money protecting sensitive fish, mussels, and other critters- efforts that also benefit smallmouth and other native sport fish. Anglers don't see all this work because it's often happening on private ground, and in the headwaters. I'd love to see more work on the mainstem streams, but installing a revetment does no good if it blows out the next spring. We need to address the headwaters and basic hydrology issues of the streams in order to make subsequent habitat restoration on the mainstems worthwhile. And again, I don't think we should leave anglers out of the equation. There's way more anglers out their than biologists, and if we want to improve ANY fishery in this state, we ought to take some responsibility for it. If an MDC biologist can't round up enough folks to complete a hundred feet of revetment on Mill Creek,there's no chance they're going to tackle miles of revetment on the mainstem Meramec or Gasconade. MSA does some great education and outreach, but when was the last time they engaged landowners on protecting streams and riparian corridors from livestock, or petitioned county governments for responsible gravel mining, worked to stabilize streambanks on public or private lands, or pulled together funding for management or research? If you want MDC to care about smallmouth (or trout or pickeral or whatever else), anglers ought to DEMONSTRATE they give a darn, not simply wax eloquent about the value of streams and navel gaze about how to improve our fisheries. What? Let's look at Crane Creek. 818 acres, 3.2 miles of trout stream. Average around 270 fish per mile, or roughly 1000 fish in the three plus miles under MDC management. Figuring the property is worth $2000 an acre, that means MDC shelled out more than $1600 per fish, to conserve and protect that system. For a fishery that maybe sees a couple thousand anglers a year. To put that in perspective, the new renovations at Bennett cost the Department $2,375,000, and will produce 360,000 fish a year. That's less than seven bucks a fish. And that park gets 180,000 anglers a year. I know it's just meatball math, but the point is MDC spends a ton of money protecting our small wild trout streams. The idea they're sacrificing those fisheries for the big draws like Taney and Bennett just doesn't hold water. If anything, they're putting a lot of money into fisheries which will provide a pretty small return. True, but a big part of it is strategy. I doubt MDC could justify spending a thousand bucks per fish on Crane or BSC if they didn't have a million guys pounding Taney and the trout parks every year, spending money on gas, Powerbait, marabou jigs and jointed Rapalas. If a minor investment in rock and labor (really no investment if it was all donated), keeps those crowds happy and buying licenses and tackle, it provides MDC the funds to continue conserving those little wild trout streams. As far as smallmouth go, a lot of it is apples to oranges. There are more external funding sources for trout than smallmouth, so if MDC has to fund 20% or 50% of a trout project vs. 80% or 100% of a smallie project, of course they'll prefer the cheaper project. And if the non-trout streams of the Ozarks are in such dire straights, it shouldn't be just on MDC to sort it out. MSA, FF organizations, whoever has an interest in those watersheds should put some stake in the game. As far as

I love wild trout, and the bulk of angling I do in this state is on the wild trout waters. But I have no sympathy for the idea MDC isn’t doing enough for our wild trout streams. They’ve protected 800 acres and 3.2 miles of trout stream in the Crane watershed. They‘ve protected nearly 860 acres and 3.7 miles of BSC. They’ve purchased and conserved 400+ acres and 1.2 miles of publicly accessible wild trout water on Mill Creek. Not to mention the willow plantings and log structures they've put in that stream. How would these places fare without MDC‘s efforts? If they were in private ownership, inaccessible to the public, grazed to the bank, widened and shallowed due to livestock, choked with gravel and cow turds? You think there’d be more trout habitat? Better fish populations? More quality fish? The reality is MDC has done a ton to benefit these streams, and if the fisheries are suffering it’s not due to a lack of investment on MDC’s part. I’ve worked a few trout habitat projects out west ,and they don’t happen because the state fish and game agency was loaded. They happen when anglers invest themselves in their fisheries. FFF and TU chapters nationwide have been doing EXACTLY the sort of habitat work you guys are clamoring for. It takes two to tango. So where’s the initiative on the angler’s part? -How much money are the state FF clubs putting into the Coldwater fund? -Are they knocking on individual and corporate doors asking for donations? -Has anyone gone to MDC with money in hand and the people necessary to do these projects? -I know some clubs are heavily sponsoring the urban trout program- could those monies be better spent on wild trout? -Are clubs actively soliciting MDC, Forest Service, etc with funds and manpower to do these sorts of projects? -Are clubs doing fundraisers with proceeds to benefit stream habitat improvements? -Are clubs engaging MDC, the public, the Conservation Commission, and making sure they know how much anglers value these fisheries? As anglers, we have to own this. And from my perspective it seems like a lot of anglers want to talk about how important these wild fisheries are, want to talk about what a poor job MDC does of managing them, but doesn’t want to roll up their sleeves and get a little dirty, or sacrifice a weekend they could be fishing improving those fisheries. You guys think MDCs habitat management is disappointing? I’m sure it’s disappointing for an MDC biologist to spend weeks or months coordinating with an angling group, creating a work plan, rounding up all the equipment and materials, and then having only having a fraction of the needed help showing up on a work day. Talk is cheap. If we want to improve our wild trout fisheries, let’s act on it.

I don't have a problem with someone using a political position as a stepping stone. But the whole idea of separating MDC from state control in the first place was to prevent political influence. I honestly don't know much about the guy, and if he's crafting MDC's direction based on what's best for the states resources, awesome. If he's crafting MDC policy based on what's most likely to get him elected in the future, I see that as a problem.

Part I. Part II to follow... If we were talking about creating spawning habitat I'd agree, but these boulders are just current breaks and subsurface features. Fish need places to feed and hide regardless of whether they were born in a stream or born in a hatchery. I'm all for trout habitat improvements, and I'm sure boulders in the small wild trout streams would really benefit holdover fish. But from a budgetary and logistics perspective, I can understand why MDC wouldn't want to hire a contractor and quarry for Taney, a contractor and quarry for Crane, a contractor and quarry for Capps and Hickory, a contractor and quarry for Mill and Spring Creek, and a contractor and quarry for Blue Springs. More anglers probably hit Taney in a weekend than those fisheries get in a month, and I totally understand why MDC would this much effort there. You guys have to remember the folks fishing Taney regularly are paying for the resource just the same as you. Has anyone bothered to think about the potential damage? Sure rocks are great, but we should all know running heavy equipment in riparian zones isn't. Does having a track hoe perched on the banks of Crane or BSC really strike you guys as a good idea? I suppose you could place rocks near parking areas to minimize damage, but doesn't that just concentrate the fish in the places they're easiest to poach? Having rocks in a stream is great, but if it takes destabilizing stream banks to do it, what's the point?

In part I agree with Eric, but having trout anywhere in the state is unnatural, it's hard to say at what point an unnatural spring creek trout fishery should take precedence over an unnatural tailwater fishery. I don't fault MDC for doing habitat work on what's probably the state's most popular trophy trout fishery. Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but it makes a good 10 second sound bite when MDC is hauled in front of the state legislature every year in an attempt to repeal the Conservation sales tax. The MDC PR folks can physically point to the habitat improvements at Taney and say "This is what we did, this is how much it cost, and here's the positive feedback we've received from anglers (read: constituents)." Are their more pressing issues MDC could be focusing on? Probably. But if you step back and take a look at the broader picture (and the current political climate), I don't fault them at all for trying to put another arrow in their quiver.

Sweet suckers! rainbows too....

Eh. In the above photos the outlet is what's drawing the fish in, not the action's of anglers. I agree it's a gray area, but to me there's a difference between fishing a naturally productive area and intentionally trying to draw them in with food in hopes of making them easier to catch. IMO it's just more sporting to play on the fishes' terms, to find out where they're eating and why, than to try and drum up some fish by chumming them in. From a more ecological perspective shuffling can destabilize gravel beds and affect the aquatic invertebrates trout and their prey feed on. Anglers boots probably aren't as dramatic as boat props, but there's a lot of wading anglers in the upper parts of Taney, and a lot of places boats can't get.

To me it's an ethics thing. Maybe it's a poor analogy, but I liken it to baiting deer or turkeys- you're putting a food item out there with the hope it'll attract and concentrate the animals, and make it easier for you to take one. I'm not sure it ought to be illegal, but IMO, it goes against the ethics of fair chase. Love the rainbow pic, OTC!

With the folks talking about the Grandpa's stores, maybe nostalgia plays some part too. I still go into Paul's periodically, if for no other reason than it's the store my dad took me, and the store my grandpa took my dad. I don't know about the gear side, but some of the big flyshops and mail order places, like Dan Bailey and even Feather-Craft, are servicing third and fourth generation customers.

They're bryozoans, a critter similar to coral. http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/bryozoa.html Actually a sign of good water quality. As far as how to keep them off your structures, I'm not sure, aside from scraping them off. You may want to talk to some MDC folks and see if they recommend any chemical treatment if it's a serious issue.

Dunno what genus they are, but I've seen yellow stoneflies in a 14-16 occasionally on the Meramec.

Pretty much what Justin said, it's up to the individual to decide whether they value price or local businesses more. I think it depends a lot on the product, and the experiences you've had with local business. I buy practically all my fly fishing gear and tying materials locally, in part because I want to know the deer hair or bucktail or dubbing I get will meet my needs, in part because I just like the people running those businesses, and they've helped my fishing immensely. They've helped me not just by selling me an item, but by helping me figure out where to fish, how to fish, what products are worthwhile and what are junk, how to tie a particular fly. The least I can do (IMO) is return the favor by keeping them in business. Conversely, there are local businesses I no longer patronize, because they don't value their customers, and it shows. Not to sound overly nostalgic, but I another component may be our general societal impatience, our need for instant gratification. It IS more time consuming to build a rapport with your local fly, camera, or bike shop. But in my experience it's worth the time.

It was a pair of wading boots, where a couple of rivets popped off in the parking lot as I was lacing them. But I am in the market for a new rainsuit, I'll have to check 'em out!