Outside Bend

If there was some more evidence to corroborate what you're seeing, I wouldn't have a problem keeping smallies. But I've only seen a few Ozark streams which would support smallie fisheries but had quanitifiably low prey abundance- and those had been heavily impacted by lead mining. Not saying it's impossible for there be stunted smallmouth populations in some Ozark streams, it just seems unlikely to me given the flashy nature of many of those streams (lower spawning success), as well as predation and other factors. It may just be that the fish population in those streams have reached equilibrium; an entirely natural situation.

Did you let the agent know?

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!! Seriously, they are. I've been in a bunch of streams (and MO river) in central Missouri, and seen thousands. Behind wing dykes, at the mouth of streams, in streams like the Lamine and Osage- they're everywhere. I think it'd be safe to say they're the most common large fish in the river at this time, probably the largest component of the fish biomass, too. And really, folks don't know all that much about them. I think it's still unknown where they spawn (if it's a few areas or along the entire river), or much about their life history. They just know they reproduce like rabbits, eat pretty much all the plankton available, and grow big quick. As far as I know MDC doesn't really take data on them. And I'm not sure how much they really can do, anyway. All told, between MDC, USFWS, and the USGS, there may be 100 or so folks working on the Missouri River. Multiply that by the 600 or so miles of river in the state, the size of the river and all significant tributaries, and millions of carp in the river at this time, it's really a drop in the bucket. Even if you had folks out there full-time killing them, I'm not sure how significant an impact it would have on the population as a whole. I think their are a few projects in the work looking at how they effect the plankton/prey base for other species, like shad and larval catfish, but I'm not sure how far along those studies are. They're fair game for commercial fishermen, but there's really no market developed for them yet. Before the recession folks were looking at using them for fish sticks, as fish meal, and as a source for concentrated Omega 3 pills, but that research has sort of stalled. I'm not sure how much more MDC can really do, it may be one of those things we'll have to just deal with until better solutions are developed.

At the pace of technological development, you guys seriously don't think fossil fuels will be obsolete in 40 years? I know some of you guys are old enough to remember promises of flying cars and 2001 Space Odyssey, but come on... From what I found at the DOE website (attached below), it seems as though fossil fuel productivity is generally declining, while prices are increasing (supply vs demand). At some point the cost of drilling or mining of fossil fuels will outweigh the profits generated by them. It's inevitable. Before the recession, when gas was 4-5 bucks a gallon, there WAS demand for more fuel efficient vehicles. That's when a lot of the E-85, ethanol, etc really got off the ground. There WAS a demand for fuel-efficient and hybrid cars. Folks couldn't keep Priuses and motorcycles in stock. I guess folks can point to the idea that there's no market for these products, but I disagree. I think a large part of it is due to the fact that we're in one of the largest global recessions in history, and there simply isn't the venture capital available to be working on ethanol or E-85 or solar or other renewable sources. People can't afford solar panels or a Prius when they're underwater on their mortgage. When things recover, and gas prices return to the new normal, I think we'll see the pendulum swing the other way. If anyone can do it, I think it's the Europeans. Their governments are investing massive sums into development of renewable energy, and citizens are encouraged (and rewarded) for energy conservation and supporting renewables (Germany pays you for the electricity produced by rooftop solar panels, for example). The EU system enables a large swath of European nations to act similarly. The culture emphasizes conservation and minimal use practices- makes sense in a relatively high-density area like Europe. Personally, I think our nation sitting on the sidelines watching Germany, Spain and China develop renewable energy at a breakneck pace verges on the obscene. I thought we were supposed to be the most industrious, hardworking, creative, independent, resourceful people on the planet? I thought we were supposed to be on the cutting edge of industry, science, and technology? Where's the Rosie the Riveter, "We Can Do It," mantra? Instead of developing the technology and exploring the possibilities of the 21st century, we're going to continue relying on a hundred-fifty year old technology, that has caused enormous environmental damage, whose primary source is from nations hostile to our values and way of life, or which require us to poison our water, forgo our wild lands, and despoil our landscape to attain domestically. To me, that flies in the face of everything we ought to believe in. If China was developing military technology light-years ahead of our own, would we sit on the sidelines and watch? Why is developing renewable energy technology any different? To me it's the same thing as any other arms/space race- knowledge is better, he who has the best technology is best off in the long-term. Forty years? No problem. The resources are there- it is possible. I have faith the technology can be developed. Whether people have the WILL to do it though, is another question entirely. Tirade over, I'm going fishing. *As an aside, one of the attached graphs shows uranium imports. I found it for those folks advocating nuclear power. I may be reading it wrong, but it looks to me like the vast majority of uranium is imported from elsewhere. If that's the case, aren't you just substituting one foreign energy source for another? coal prices.pdf crude prices.pdf gas prices.pdf natural gas prices.pdf natural gas well productivity.pdf oil well productivity.pdf coal mining productivity.pdf uranium imports.pdf cost of drilling wells.pdf

The arguments against ethanol seem awfully similar to the arguments made against switching to unleaded gas. I don't remember that switch being the downfall of humanity, and I doubt this switch (if ethanol proves viable), will be, either. The technology will be adapted to meet the needs of consumers, just as before. I'm not totally sold on ethanol either, there glaring environmental issues which haven't been resolved. But I also know that extracting more fossil fuels isn't the way out of the whole we've collectively dug.

Everything I've been able to find indicates food isn't the limiting factor for smallmouth growth in most Ozark streams. They generally seem to have enough of a prey base to support a larger (either in terms of numbers or size), smallmouth population.

I just wanted to bring it up, something for folks to think about. At times, the whole regulation thing seems like a bit out of Monty Python's "Life of Brian," lots of folks saying things, relatively few doing anything. Carry on.

And a bloom of algae subsisting off the oil-eater's waste would eventually die, their decomposition would use up oxygen, and you'd set up the potential for a recurring dead-zone. The Prince William Sound is a different system than the Gulf. Different species, with different energetic requirements. Different water temperatures. Exxon was all oil, this is a mixture of oil and gas. I don't have all the answers (or even most of them), and I'm not sure how severe the impacts of this oil spill will be on the Gulf ecosystem. I do know that sometimes our solutions are just as bad as the problem.

From what I've observed, the discussion over more restrictive smallmouth regs is a matter of angler preference more so than the health of the resource: one segment wants to see more quality fish, while other folks have different interests. While I agree that more restrictive regs would lead to more large fish overall, it'll only work if the anglers support and adopt those regulations. If people don't see the value of letting stream smallmouth grow, they'll still keep fish below the 12 inch slot, potentially undercutting those restrictive regs. IMO, to see results, you need to change the culture/values just as much as you need to change the regulations. Folks like Lee Wulff, Dan Bailey, etc, extolled the virtues of C&R and limited harvest long before those ethics were popular with most anglers, before many state agencies had adopted those regulations. Once the paradigm shifted from keeping everything to valuing more and larger fish, fisheries generally improved. For me, advocating stricter regulations is really only focusing on one side of the equation. Maybe it's overly idyllic, but if folks (myself included), spent less time on here debating the merits of regulation, and more time engaging the general public, we would see increased compliance with existing regs, and an increased demand for more miles of quality smallmouth fishing. Maybe interested parties should spend more time working on the public outreach side of things- talking to folks at the access/boat ramp, gas station/tackle/fly shop clerks, high school/scout/church groups, etc about the value of quality smallmouth fisheries. Maybe the Smallmouth Alliance could spearhead some other PR efforts- I mentioned in some other post about rulers with corresponding length-at-age, showing folks just how old a 12 inch smallie is. Maybe a patch program similar to the "I Released a Lunker," program the trout parks do. I guess all I'm saying is: anything done to increase demand for quality stream smallmouth fisheries is going to make it easier to get better quality regulations implemented on Ozark streams in the future. If we're not going to tackle issues like habitat degradation and land use changes because they're too difficult, why make the regulations avenue any tougher than it has to be?

Statewide, I like Chief's proposal, somewhere around a 12-16" slot. I like Eric's more restrictive slot for some of the larger, more productive streams, but to me, on many smaller Ozark streams, it'd be de-facto C&R, or at least setting a maximum length limit of 14 inches. Maybe play with those regs on a few small streams first, see what effect they have on the SMB populations there. If it's positive, and accepted by anglers, I could see it being pushed to other streams, or statewide.

Not really fishy. Every now and again oil bubbles up from the ocean floor, and through time some organisms have evolved to exploit that food base. There's already oil-eating microbes present in the Gulf, and they're already naturally consuming the oil (some of the weathered and degraded oil you've heard talk of). Just like us, those critters need oxygen. I think the fear with adding more to the mix is that they would de-oxygenate the waters of the gulf, so instead of a big dead zone due to oil, you'd have a big dead zone due to oil and oil-eating, oxygen-consuming microbes. In either instance the area wouldn't be be very hospitable to most marine life, so it's really a no-win situation.

That's the way I typically go, BUT... 181 doglegs in several places, and it's a pretty hilly route. If you're headed down for the first time, especially in the dark, you may want to try something else. You can also take 60/63 east towards West Plains, and make a right (heading west) on HWY CC (Howell Co). That will take you to 181, and it's a fair bit straighter. Good luck!

I'm not going to get into arguments about global warming, supporting or otherwise. No matter what facts people bring out to support or reject the hypothesis, people will go on believing whatever makes their lives more comfortable. Suffice it to say, I wouldn't bet my future on a guy whose gets to keep his job even if he screws up half the time I think everyone can agree that global temperature is rising- the sticking point is whether that's due to human impacts. To me it's a non-issue: regardless of whether people caused it, changes in the planet's climate are going to have severe impacts on the way we live- whether that's a shift in weather patterns, a rise in sea level, acidification of the world's oceans, loss in biodiversity, etc. Carbon dioxide is a a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide is emitted during the burning of fossil fuels. Even if the current temperature shift were a natural event, wouldn't it be wise to try and mitigate our impact as much as possible, even if our impact is relatively small? If using less fossil fuels means keeping a bad situation from getting worse, I'm all for it.

So I assume you guys have already talked to your congresspeople, and let them know you'd be alright with a nuke plant a half mile upwind of your house, right?

I may be mistaken, but I believe LOZ is the primary source for the state's walleye broodstock. They run up to Truman dam in the spring, and the MDC folks take some over to Lost Valley in Warsaw. I think...

I've always said it's a scene befitting Branson . No offense to the guys living down there, but it can be a zoo at times.

Funk did some of the pioneering work on fish movements in Missouri streams, and found a little more than 60% of the smallmouth population was sedentary. The remainder moved, on average, around 7 miles (upstream), and five miles (downstream). My hope would be the MDC folks took fish movement into account when developing the management areas, and they created those zones large enough to provide a buffer for the effects of other regulations on each end of the special management area. Yeah, I'm pretty cashed myself, and I think we've discussed about all their is, without going into esoteric rants about giggers and black helicopters. I probably should've prefaced everything by saying I've never kept a smallmouth, and that I have no desire to. I just think the meat-fishing crowd ought to have a seat at the table when it comes to regulation and fisheries management. With a diet of fish and carrion, I'm not sure how good a bald eagle would taste. Hellbenders, on the other hand... I know some good spots on the Gasconade for 'em, spots other folks wouldn't think to look. Let me know if you're interested Cheers.

Population estimates for bison pre-settlement are somewhere around 30 million. The current US cattle population is better than three times that- more than 96 million. If that's your argument against the climate change hypothesis, welcome aboard

I've been that guy to the right more than once.

I think the better question is "Did you skip that day in high school economics?" There's lots of factors that effect the price of oil, but one of the biggest is simple supply-and-demand. When it's prevalent and easy to get out of the ground, and there aren't all that many people using it, it's cheap. When we've burned through all that prevalent, easy to access oil, and there's a billion people in China, a billion people in India, and developing nations like Brazil, Mexico, and others all vying for the resource, prices inherently increase. The technology is still in an early stage of development. As designs improve and production increases, costs will be reduced. Were the first automobiles cheaper than owning a horse? I depend on fossil fuels just the same as anyone, but I also try to use as little as possible- not only because it's cheaper, but because I'm conscious of the environmental impacts of fossil fuels- be they smog, acid rain, mountaintop removal in Appalachia, environmental degradation in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Texas, and the human cost- dead drillers in the Gulf, dead miners in West Virginia.

Yeah, you did cherry pick the data- that Jacks Fork/Gasconade study also shows: 1.) Increasing regs on the Jacks Fork didn't effect smallmouth size, just numbers of fish. 2.) Angler effort did decline after more stringent regs were put into place on the Jacks Fork. 3.) Harvest of smallmouth INCREASED on the Gasconade after more stringent regulations were put into place. 4.) Harvest regulations may not improve size distribution of fish, if there's already a high release rate. 5.) Harvest regulations won't compensate for poor habitat The data was pretty interesting, and there's a lot that could be said about it. One thing that stuck out at me was this:

The research and development which goes into finding viable alternatives depends on large amounts of money, much of which comes through government subsidies and grants. Lest we forget, energy and mineral extraction companies ALSO receive government subsidies. One spill and we've shut down drilling for 6 months that will be extended! One accident with a nuclear plant and we can't do that anymore, Yeah, one spill which has crippled the seafood and tourist industries throughout the gulf coast, and again, killed 11 people and untold numbers of sensitive wildlife. One nuclear event which had the potential to poison hundreds of thousands of people, and leave others with long-term chronic illnesses. Coal extraction which levels mountains. How much environmental and human damage are you willing to sustain so you can get gas for 2 bucks a gallon? To me...expensive gas is part of the deal. If you live 60 miles from your workplace, you ought to expect you'll be using a lot of gas. If you drive an SUV or use inefficient 2-stroke engines, you ought to expect to use a lot of gas. Poor decision making on your end does not constitute an emergency on my end. If you're upset because you can't afford that lifestyle, maybe it's time to modify your habits. If you're unwilling to do that...I'm not sure how much room you have to complain. I call BS on this one. What's the difference between a farmer being given money to provide a commodity like food more cheaply, and a farmer being given money to provide a commodity like ethanol more cheaply? If subsidies are the issue, it seems pretty arbitrary to say one is acceptable and the other isn't.

Disregarding the environmental impact of mining nuclear fuel and storing the highly toxic waste, it's still a finite resource. There's only so much uranium on the planet. There are approximately 20,000 documented oil spills in the US each year, about 300 of which are managed by the EPA. Eleven people died. Hundreds, if not thousands, are out of work. The gulf seafood industry, an important economic factor in many states, is essentially shut down. And one of the world's most productive ecosystems is suffering untold environmental damage. I really don't think most people are blowing thing out of proportion- it just really is a disaster.

Glad to hear you had fun and got into fish! The Current's sort of a finicky river- when it's good it's great, and the fishing can be silly. Other days you'll go and...nothing.

If you could find it, I'd be interested in seeing it, if the data corroborates what you guys think you're seeing, I'm all open to that. Maybe just pick one well-studied river, the Meramec, Big, Jacks Fork, Gasconade and Big Piney spring to mind. Maybe throw out the Meramec and Big River because of the spotted bass invasion. MDC's electrofishing data would probably be easier to obtain and more consistent than creel censuses or angler surveys. I think catch per unit effort (CPUE) and length-frequency distributions would be of most interest, the farther back you can get the better. If you could get figures for yearly fishing license sales, that may be interesting too.