Outside Bend

Let's stick to the facts- while spotted bass may have reached north-flowing streams via natural routes, it's at best an armchair theory. On the other hand there are documented reports of spotted bass being stocked in those streams. You have trout which were stocked outside their native range. You have spotted bass that were stocked outside their native range. You do understand the difference in magnitude between trout evicting smallies from a dozen miles of coldwater stream and spots evicting smallies from entire watersheds, right? Shouldn't it scare you that spots are evicting smallmouth so rapidly, over such a broad area? Shouldn't it alarm you that spots are are doing what trout never have- rapidly eliminating native smallmouth from large portions of their native range? Yet while spotted bass take over watersheds and genuinely do push native smallmouth out of large parts of their native range, you want to bicker about trout and effects they have on half a percent of the region's aquatic habitat. Seems ridiculous to me. You like to argue that we don't know what a pristine Ozark smallie stream looked like. You also like to argue that non-native trout push smallmouth out of their habitat. But it can't be both. While it's possible smallies were ubiquitous throughout their drainages, its also plausible that they didn't occupy habitats where water temperatures were too cold for them to thrive. We don't know. Either we don't know what Ozark streams looked like before trout, and therefore can't say whether coldwater habitats were vacant or occupied, and therefore can't say whether trout out-competed smallmouth or simply exploited a vacant niche...or we do know what Ozark streams looked like before trout, and we can say with certainty that the places now occupied by trout were formerly occupied by smallmouth. You can't argue both, and as you've said- you'd be hard-pressed to find some one who remembers Ozark streams before trout came along. Trout populations and ranges aren't expanding at the expense of smallmouth, smallmouth populations and ranges aren't declining as a result of trout. Spotted bass populations ARE expanding at the expense of smallmouth, and smallmouth populations ARE declining as a result of spots. Which scenario represents equilibrium? That's a pretty subjective statement. Maybe the most precious natural resource is stream smallmouth. Maybe it's channel catfish, carp, and bluegill-they're pretty ubiquitous throughout the state. Maybe it's just the trout parks- they see more angling pressure than many fisheries. Maybe it's the reservoirs- they can handle more people and a wider variety of uses. Maybe the real secret is quality bowfin and gar management. Maybe we ought to quit the sport fisheries entirely and focus on Niangua and bluestripe darters, Ozark minnows, spothanded crayfish, pink planarias and other organisms that are endemic, and found nowhere else on the planet except for within our arbitrary state lines.

And that, to me, seems like a pretty reasonable scenario. That's something I could get behind. I think the folks who want to keep fish would tend to disagree...

I'd agree to a point OTF, but I also think there's an issue of scale. Fisheries where thousands of people are using hundreds of miles of stream are going to require more intensive management than fisheries where thousands of anglers are using thousands of miles of streams- there's more pressure on the resource in the former scenario, and it just takes more effort to provide a decent fishery while keeping as many people happy as possible. For what it's worth, I've also noticed some fisheries biologists are just more interested in managing reservoir or trout fisheries than stream smallmouth- that's where their interests lie, so that's what gets the focus. Regardless, I would like to see some more effort being put into managing the state's smallmouth stream smallmouth resources. I guess I don't really see it as attacking someone- drew's entitled to his viewpoint, and like any good theory I think it shouldn't be accepted at face value, but rather exposed to scrutiny. If it holds up, all the better. If it doesn't, back to the drawing board.

You think the fish know where the state line is? It should be obvious that saying "X species are native to the state," and "X species are native to this particular watershed/stream," Are two very different things. Shovelnose sturgeon are native to the state, but not to Mill Creek. Ozark cavefish are native to the state, but you won't find them swimming in a farm pond outside Kirksville. Spotted bass are native to the state, but not to north-flowing rivers of the Ozarks, which was my point. An organism that wasn't historically present in a river cannot, by definition, be considered native, and arguing about it is idiocy. They were stocked (we've been over this before), and are not a native part of those stream's fauna. You're saying to tolerate one non-native species which impacts native smallmouth, but to eliminate another non-native species which impacts smallmouth. I just want to know how you can hold two conflicting positions. Moreover, I'd argue non-native spots have done more to alter and damage native smallmouth fisheries in the past 20-30 years than non-native trout have in more than a century. While it's possible that trout pushed smallies out of coldwater sections of the Meramec, it's undeniable that spots have pushed smallmouth out of much of their prime habitat in the middle and lower portions of that river, as well as the Bourbeuse, Big River, Gasconade, Maries, and others- far more stream miles than trout have impacted. If your genuinely interested in conserving native smallmouth, wouldn't it make more sense to attack giants as opposed to windmills? I don't know how many ways I can say it, but the trout program is self-sustaining- dependent on funds generated primarily through licenses and tags. Most folks aren't going to buy trout licenses and tags if there's no trout to catch. You could defund the program and reallocate those monies to smallmouth or other native fisheries, and they'd be flush for cash for a season or two. But without folks buying trout stamps, trout tags, and trout tackle, that money would quickly dry up. I don't see how that scenario benefits native smallmouth programs long-term, or anglers. Texas paid MDC for those fish. How is that a waste of money? Because trout have no impact on the VAST majority of smallmouth water. You're ready to hit the mattresses because trout are present in a fraction of a percent of all the Ozark's streams, all I'm saying is that's ridiculous. We're not talking about the imminent, widespread loss of smallmouth fisheries due to the presence of trout, we're not even talking about trout excluding smallies- you see both in the same stream reaches. You're genuinely discontent that 99.95% of the streams get to remain native smallmouth fisheries, while .05% contain predominately trout (though still with some smallies present)? That just seems infantile to me. What fisheries made the Ozarks famous is both debatable and irrelevant- the White River tailwaters get an awful lot of press, and the NFoW has been listed as one of the top 100 trout streams in the nation. But that has no bearing on how the state's waters should be managed.

But White Ribbon streams probably wouldn't have viable trout populations without stocking, so isn't that a moot point? Would no fish really be preferable to stocked fish?

The worst I ever had was at Montauk last winter. The day started around 18 degrees, with a high of 26- ice in the guides, the whole bit. But the fish were eating. I was one of four folks fishing that day. Not four cars. Four people. And yet, with free reign over anywhere in the park, this guy still sidles up 15 feet to my right and starts casting, putting down the fish. He'd walk downstream about a hundred feet until I caught or hooked a fish, then he'd be right back at my side. Incredibly irritating.

If the water temperatures are too low for smallmouth to thrive, it's going to be a poor smallmouth fishery regardless of whether or not trout are there. It's really that simple, and it doesn't matter whether people remember it before it had trout or not.

Yup. The native range of spotted bass includes south-flowing Ozark streams. They're as native to north-flowing streams of the Ozarks as, say, rainbow trout. They have been placed there by private and public fisheries managers, and they're having an effect on native smallmouth. Right. In streams where they co-evolved, they do fine. But once you start mashing up organisms from different ecological histories- be they trout or spotted bass- you can have ramifications. My point is that last year you were telling folks not to worry about non-native spotted bass invading and displacing native smallmouth. Now you say we ought to quit stocking trout because they invade and displace native smallmouth. Those two assertions seem to conflict, and I was wondering how you reconcile them. If you take a position, you ought to be able to defend it is all. Where? Smallies and walleye are coolwater fish, trout are coldwater fish. Most of the spring streams the state stocks with trout are too cold for walleye or smallmouth to do well in the first place. Many of the smaller trout streams aren't great smallie/walleye habitat either, even discounting spring flows- neither species is particularly common in headwater streams, and you'd be hard-pressed to find walleye and smallmouth in streams like Mill or Blue Springs even if trout weren't there. If trout were really hammering smallmouth, you'd expect to find evidence of it in fisheries surveys- fewer smallmouth, poorer growth of smallmouth, etc. Instead most MO smallmouth streams have proportional stock densities (number of fish greater than legal length) which hover around 20-30%, regardless of whether trout are in the system. Black River, Gasconade, Courtois all have around 25%, Niangua has 22%, Big River has 30%, Huzzah has 14%, etc. Oddly enough, two of the streams where trout and smallmouth share habitat have some of the highest PSDs- the upper Meramec at 35% and the middle Current at 45%. As I said before, it's probably that some trout exclude some smallmouth from marginal habitat, but the idea that trout are overrunning smallie populations in anything more than a small proportion of stream miles doesn't reflect reality. Trout have been present in the state for more than a century, yet I haven't seen evidence of dramatic range expansions- they're still outnumbered by natives in most if not all Ozark river systems which haven't been drastically altered. All I'm sayin' is that if trout are having a significant impact on native fish, there ought to be some evidence of it. As much as you seem to want it to be, it's not about being a trout snob, it's about providing anglers with another fishing opportunity. If it's between having a trout fishery and having no fishery, I'm gonna go with trout. If it's between having a crappy smallmouth fishery and a good trout fishery, then yeah, I'm gonna go with trout. The state's trout program is self-sustaining, no money is being diverted from smallmouth or other stream/fisheries projects in order to pay for trout. Nor does it work the other way around- the trout program monies aren't used to fund other stream/fisheries projects. Just to produce trout, pay hatchery workers, etc. Again, your assertion doesn't reflect reality. The reason MDC produces trout isn't because its a cash cow, rather because it's a popular sportfish with many anglers, and those anglers want the opportunity to catch trout in the state. As for artificial fisheries- the state's wild trout water is just as artificial as the state's stocked trout water, yet you're willing to keep the wild stuff. Seems like another inconsistent argument. $42 bucks for a year's fishing is pretty cheap compared to most states, even Kansas charges another fifty cents to out of state anglers. If it's too much for you, you're more than welcome to stay there I don't give a rat's butt what you do to get your string pulled. This season I've spent far more time chasing smallies than trout, the year before was the opposite. I just took issue with your half baked idea that the state should quit stocking trout. You never did answer my questions- would marginal wild trout fisheries on streams like Capps and Hickory be able to support the level of use and harvest of a White Ribbon trout stream? How does stopping stocking benefit trout anglers? How does decreasing trout angling opportunities in Missouri increase trout angling opportunities in Missouri? You're right, I'm an idiot for thinking most trout anglers are going to fish for trout on areas the state manages for trout fishing. The vast majority of folks would rather spend their time knocking on doors or tracking down their neighbor's brother's chiropractor's great aunt's cousin twice removed who had a dog who really belonged to a miner down the street who's first wife's second cousin's neighbor's uncles college roomate knew a guy from Aurora whose milkman's brother-in law stocked some little creek with trout out of a milk pail once. Or maybe they were bluegill-he doesn't remember. You're missing the point- there's hundreds of miles of trout water in the state compared to thousands of miles of smallmouth water in the state. Even if you doubled the number to 240 miles of trout streams, you're talking about something like .05% of the potential smallmouth habitat being occupied by trout. If you can have a few decent trout fisheries as well as keep 99.95% of native smallie habitat out there, I think that's a pretty fair compromise. Of course water temperature has no bearing on the distribution of trout and smallmouth . And there's never been a situation where non-native organisms have quickly become established and ubiquitous- not common carp, or silver carp, or bighead carp, or gypsy moths, or rusty crayfish, or zebra mussels, or starlings, or cockroaches, or anything else. When you catch a trout on one cast and a smallmouth on the next, or when you see a longear or bluegill following a mudding carp, or when a starling and a cardinal are both at your bird feeder, or a coyote or fox eats a pheasant- yeah, there are situations where native and non-native species cohabitate.

I guess I haven't seen a C&R zone where bait is allowed. The thought is the higher mortality rates associated with bait discount whatever gains are made through C&R regs. How? Folks pay MDC to raise trout, MDC raises trout, MDC releases trout for the benefit of the folks who paid for them. How is that irresponsible? Would there be an issue if I buy $7 worth of rainbow trout from the grocery store? How is that any different than buying $7 worth of rainbow trout through MDC? I'd be really surprised if bait fisherman were the minority of trout anglers in Missouri. And your scenario overlooks that segment of anglers that want to keep some of the fish they catch- that's part of the issue. Us fly and spin guys basically have access to 100% of the state's trout water, including the best stuff in terms of fish production. Bait guys, or guys who want to keep fish, are much more restricted in terms of on what waters they can use their preferred gears, and those waters are typically lower quality in terms of trout production. No one's stopping you from fishing Capps or Hickory, and it seems silly to me for the guys with access to 100% of the water to claim that the guys who can only fish the dregs should fork over their slice of the pie, too. My guess is that if the shoe was on the other foot, and bait anglers wanted to turn the Upper Current back into a put-and-take fishery, folks would be incensed one group of anglers was proposing regulations solely to feed their own self-interests. And I don't see how you can say C&R is maximizing the most good for the most people while simultaneously giving one angling demographic (bait/catch and keep guys) the finger. Seems to me offering a little bit of something for all crowds would be a much better way of going about it. There's no reason to ban ostracize the bait/catch and keep crowd when we accommodating their desires is a pretty easy and benign thing to do. I'll be honest in that I don't remember the particulars of Marbury v. Madison, but I think there was another guy around that period who said something to the effect of "We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately."

Would these small, marginal, wild trout fisheries be able to support similar levels of harvest and use as the trout parks and White Ribbon areas? The white ribbon areas serve a purpose- provide folks a stream to catch trout, and potentially take a few home, without having the level of use you see at the trout parks. It's just another tool in the state's trout management toolbox to maximize limited coldwater resources for the largest number of anglers. I'm not sure what this means. Spawning habitat is pretty easy to quantify- either there's enough of it for a population to sustain itself or there's not. Either there's enough to produce enough fish for a quality fishery or their isn't. I see no problem with MDC writing off streams as poor wild trout water if they really won't support decent populations of wild trout. I guess I've never really understood this argument- it just doesn't seem to mesh with reality. The Eleven Point has about 20 miles of trout water and a little more than 30 miles of smallmouth/coolwater water. On the whole the state has about 120 miles of trout streams, compared to thousands of miles of smallmouth streams- seems to me the trout aren't really overrunning the place. Catch rates and length distributions are pretty similiar between the 11pt and other Ozark smallie streams, including streams that have no trout. Qualitatively, you can fish the 11 pt, North Fork, Current, Meramec, and Niangua and have some pretty excellent days catching a mix of smallmouth AND trout. And yes, MDC stocks about 5000 trout in the 11 pt- my guess is the resident smallies produce far more than 5000 offspring in a year. Just as trout haven't overrun Table Rock even though Roaring River dumps in, and just as Taneycomo and Bull Shoals have trout fisheries at one end and cool/warmwater fisheries at the other, temperature plays an enormous role, just as was pointed out in the White River analogy. I'm sure there have been some negative impacts associated with stocking rainbows- but it seems likely that trout only replaced smallmouth in habitat where smallmouth populations don't do too well in the first place- namely due to water temperatures. We're not talking about the wholesale replacement of a non-native species with an endemic, we're talking about introducing a species which will utilize an available niche. I'm not a big fan of the trout hatcheries or the fish they produce. While I think it'd be noble to go wild trout only, it's just not practical in a state where there's so much interest in trout and so few streams in which trout can naturally reproduce. Our streams, managed as wild-trout fisheries, just couldn't handle the angling pressure. Not to mention that Taneycomo would go tits-up pretty much immediately. Not to derail the thread but Drew- I can't understand how on the one hand you're willing to allow replacement of smallies by non-native spotted bass, but on the other want to end stocking because non-native trout compete with other fish...?

Why?

It's not my thing either- I'd much rather spend my time with a fly or spinning rod than soaking worms. My point is, just because it's not my thing shouldn't preclude other folks, folks who enjoy it, from doing it. It'd be like your wife or girlfriend trying to ban fishing in general, because she simply doesn't understand the enjoyment their significant other gets from it. To me, it shouldn't matter whether someone understands why another enjoys soaking worms or dropping minners, they should simply recognize it. Those folks get as much enjoyment soaking bait as I do casting flies; that ought to be enough. I know I wouldn't enjoy being told I couldn't use my gear of choice on a given stream reach, and I imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, and bait guys were clamoring to get back into the upper Current or other artificials-only water, there'd be a lot of outrage. All I'm sayin' is: diversity is good

True, but it ignores the differences in C&R rates between fly and bait anglers, differences in angling pressure, etc. EDIT: sorry FS, didn't see your post up there I guess IMO fisheries management shouldn't be solely about producing the largest number of quality fish, but rather maximizing a finite resource for the benefit of the greatest number of people. If we're all on the same page, and everyone wants quality trout/smallmouth/whatever populations, good deal. If some folks want to use bait, I think we can make those concessions. If some folks want to keep a fish here and there, I think we can make some concessions. If some folks, for whatever sick reason, want to eat a hatchery trout, we can make some concessions. If you want to use a speargun or atlatl to kill some fish...ok, we'll try to find a way for you to do that. It's compromise. Not everyone gets everything they want, but enough people get enough of what they like to keep folks reasonably content.

We do the same thing with bourbon, sans limes of course. There's not much that feels better after a long walk in the cold than sitting around a campfire with Basil Hayden's or something similar.

It's capitalism, mate. The Invisible Hand decided it was time for the Current River valley to get with the program. Free enterprise, and all that goodness. what you think of as an intrusion into an outdoors experience I call progress . Fishing-especially fly-fishing, is an extraordinarily inefficient and unproductive use of time. It adds little if anything to the GDP. This tower allows folks to use all that unproductive time they USED to spend fishing checking email, trading stocks, talking to clients, checking business forecasts...all sorts of opportunities are out there if you just embrace them. I've seen more folks talking on the phone on golf courses than actually playing golf, it's about time anglers took up their slack! (pun was not intended, but it made me smile). All in jest, of course. Last year I was at a New Year's party and someone said it was snowing- no less than a half-dozen folks whipped out their iPhones to check the instant weather forecast- I just opened the front door and looked out. Last summer a bunch of friends went to Yellowstone, one of whom found out he could get cell reception on Slough Creek. He spent an inordinate amount of time yacking to his girlfriend instead of fishing, and after a few days was trying to get us all to go back so he could call out, check in, all that business. It took a lot of restraint for me not to drop-kick the thing into the sagebrush. For better or for worse folks are enslaved by their PDAs, iPhones, smartphones, cell phones, Droids, Blackberries, iPads, etc- and as much as they complain about it, they don't actually DO anything to remedy the issue. Every one I've seen comes equipped with an OFF button, use it. If people ask questions, tell them you were out fishing. If people still ask questions, make them aware you're not required to stay in contact with the rest of the world 24/7.

I almost never use bait, but I have no problem with the folks who do. It's a great way to get kids started- very few people I know went straight to spin or fly fishing. Some species are just tough to catch on artificials. And I'm not sure where you'd draw the line as to what constitutes bait- natural foods, prepared baits, scented plastics? To me a ban on bait seems sort of arbitrary, a guy who catches 5 fish and keeps them has about the same effect as a gear or fly guy who has a 50 fish day C&R. Personally, I'd rather have a bait guy come buy and catch his limit in a half-hour than spend a day low-holed by a fly guy using 7x that takes 10 minutes to bring a .75 lb fish to net, spends another five minutes squeezing and hucking it on grass and gravel for a photo op, then does the "noble," thing and releases it, and who drinks the grape Kool-Aid that C&R means none of the fish you catch on a given day will die as a result. There are some real issues with bait, but they're issues shared with the rest of the angling community- transportation of exotic species, litter, poaching, etc. To me, banning bait wouldn't do much for the fishery, but it would be another schism which divides the angling community for no other reason than one faction finds it uncouth. Just because a fishery isn't being managed the way you'd like, doesn't mean it's being mismanaged.

They're pretty good sticks- a little on the slow side, which is fine for small streams, dry flies, and light tippets. Plus, the blanks are pretty cheap- around $90. If you were interested in a project, it could be your first rodbuilding experience

You guys could set up a show in St. Louis....

Old people. They wake up early, go home early, and they don't want to deal with the hoodlums during the weekend

As for what I'd like to see done with trout regulations, I'm pretty happy with the status quo. I'd like to learn more about the evaluations MDC did on redband trout in the past, and whether those studies should be revisited, as I imagine the technology used to rear fish has changed substantially in the past several decades, and using redband trout could be more feasible now. I'd like to see more easements for wild trout water, if at all possible. I'm not a big fan of increasing stocking anywhere, unless it's accompanied with regs to make it more than just another put-and-take fishery, with hordes of folks chasing the stocking truck and fished out after a couple days. Cutthroat would be interesting, although it's an idea I'm by no means wedded to. Although they are tougher to raise than rainbows or browns, they're also generally less selective. If that trait gets more folks into the sport, it may be worthwhile.

I guess IMO things like GM foods are precisely why America's small farmers are in the predicament they are. When you can grow 70 bushels of wheat an acre, it depresses the price of wheat. When you can house 5000 hogs in a shed, it depresses the price of pork. A guy can't make money in that game unless they have a lot of land to work, and unlike corporate farmers, most of the little guys don't have the capital to be buying productive farmland at a couple grand an acre. Moreover, farmers are aging just the same as the rest of the population- many are on their way off this mortal coil. When faced with losing money on a farm or gaining revenue by selling the land to developers, I figure many folks are going to go towards the latter. I'm not sure what the answers are. Reconfiguring farm subsidies to help small farmers compete would be a start, but I don't see it happening. Remember the outrage when food prices went up a few years back? We love cheap food like a fat kid loves cake, to use the parlance of our times. But it's just unreal to me that we can consume as much food as we do in this nation, while at the same time the people producing it are going bankrupt. Craziness.

You do need male sperm and female eggs, but they don't have to be in the fishes' body. Trout reproduce externally, so you can strip the fish of eggs and milt (sperm), and reproduce them artificially- that's how most hatcheries work. Roundup-Ready- be it soybean, corn, beets, or other seed- has been genetically modified to resist pesticide. I believe there are also some GM rice varieties in production. Basically, if you eat grain, or eat animals that eat grain, it's likely you've been eating GM organisms at some point in the food chain.

Just thinking.... I once read an article where the author was discussing Atlantic Salmon, and how their rarity is a completely artificial situation- upon colonization, they were used as fertilizer, they were fed to indentured servants because they were the cheapest protein available, etc. My how the world has changed... Maybe I'm just cynical, but I doubt GM products will end world hunger any faster than irrigation, pesticides, or artificial fertilizers did- they've all been purported to be the end of famine at one point or another. IMO, people do a terrible job of engineering the landscape when comparied with nature. When people realize they have to adapt to their surroundings as opposed to the other way around, that's when we'll be able to solve hunger and many of our other enviromental/social problems.

I actually heard a piece on NPR a while back about some litigation on that issue. Basically some organic sugar-beet growers sued adjacent landowners who were using GM, Roundup-ready seed, because the folks using GM plants couldn't prevent the organic produce from being tainted through pollination. The organic guys appear to have won. I wonder if the same tactic could be used in the salmon situation- would wild salmon fishermen be able to prevent these GM fish from being used if the potential damage to their livelihood could be shown?

And atlantics