Outside Bend

I guess my argument isn't with the mechanics of it- in streams where there's high harvest, raising the MLL or introducing a slot should increase bass size. My issue is with the human element that some folks seem to be ignoring: there's a constituency of folks who like to keep bass. They pay into the system just the same as anyone else- licenses, tackle, etc. To me that gives them the right to have their interests reflected in MDC's management strategy. To me there's no heirarchy of what's best for a smallmouth stream- c&R isn't any more important than trophy regs or limited harvest. It just depends on how you want a given fishery managed. The wishes and interests of folks who want to keep fish shouldn't be berated or ignored simply because they have different interests than the trophy angling crowd. Lots of things have changed in the past 20-30 years, and I doubt you could say with any certainty that harvest has effected SMB populations any more than effects like habitat loss, land use changes and urbanization, the increase of hormones and intersex fish, drought/weather patterns, shifts in water temperature, etc. I'd be willing to bet a higher proportion of anglers C&R smallies now compared to 20-30 years ago, and yet you still say there's a decline... I could only find one MDC study on the Gasconade, where anglers were releasing 51 to 100 percent of the smallies they caught. Even assuming that anglers were removing half the smallies from a river in a year, each female has to produce only a couple offspring out of a nest of more than 3000 eggs in order to make up for the previous season's take, and for the population to more or less maintain itself. You may not be getting any wall hangers, but the population isn't going to crash, either. And as I said before: I just haven't seen any data from MDC which indicates smallie populations are declining, much less due to overharvest.

Smallie harvest is likely impacting bass size, but there's no evidence that smallie harvest is contributing to a long-term decline in SMB numbers. I've never yet to see data showing Ozark SMB stocks declining due to overharvest. To me it's silly to frame the discussion as one of "conservation minded," anglers and, presumably, those who don't care. Harvest can be permitted without compromising the fishery. It's even possible to have harvest AND more fish growing to a bigger average size, provided the appropriate management regime. To me it's not about conservation, it's about preferences- the preference for larger fish or the preference for creeling some fish.

Last I checked, ConocoPhillips was doing pretty well. They even have wells in the Gulf of Mexico. When an oil company is leasing Federal land for drilling, they must comply with pertinent federal regulations. They're stipulations of the contract. Where that company's headquarters are located- Britain or the Netherlands or Dallas, is immaterial. They all have to follow the same rules. If it were too expensive for companies to abide by federal regulations and operate in the states, they wouldn't be extracting natural resources on land leased from the government. Your hypothesis doesn't fit the observations. From what I've heard and read, it sure seems like BP's to blame on this one. They seem to have neglected key maintenance, and seem to have put production ahead of safety, both for the environment and their own personnel. Now it's coming back to bite them.

Sorry Eric, most of what I wrote was directed to the folks wanting statewide no-kill or trophy regs. As I've said before, I'm all for trophy regulations, provided there's some balance between folks who want to catch quality fish and folks who want to take some eaters home. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but the MDC's 2009 Annual Report indicates they received more than 32 million dollars in permit sales. Even if that isn't the case, federal sportfish dollars are allocated based on the number of fishing licenses sold in a state. MDC may not make money directly on license sales, but they do receive funding based on the number of licenses they sell. Again, I should've stated my comments were more directed at the folks who want C&R/quality regs on all statewide smallie streams. Like it or not, there's an element of the fishing public for whom it's a means to an end- a way of getting a mess of fish for the table. And if those folks go from fishing six times a month to fishing three times a month because they can't keep smallies, there's at least some likelihood it could impact MDC's bottom line. And for the folks expressing the "if they want to keep smallies screw 'em," mentality- I'm glad you've thought this out. . How does fewer anglers pursuing smallies make SMB fisheries a higher priority for the agency? Why would they spend more money on management and enforcement if they're reaching a reduced segment of the public? They could reach more people spending that money on duck hunting or birdwatching blinds. Remember when you bought your fishing license last winter and the vendor asked if you had fished for smallmouth in the past year? They don't ask those sort of questions because they can't think of a better one... You also have to take into account political ramifications. MDC sure does. With an adversarial, even at times hostile, state legislature, adding regulations which ban or regulate "traditional Ozark activities," out of existence just gives ammo to those who want to do away with the conservation sales tax. The folks who are negatively impacted by those regs will certainly let their state representatives know. Not to sound like CGB, but why? Why should you suspect someone of illegal activity just because they see things differently than you do? For all you know, his kid just got back from Iraq, and hasn't had a decent fish fry in two years. I agree with this, but I'd just like to play devil's advocate for a moment: I assume SMA's would be most successful on streams with robust smallmouth populations, which exhibit high growth rates and good fecundity and survival. Fish in these streams would be protected, and angler and harvest pressure would be redirected to elsewhere. I'm guessing the streams without SMA's would be the ones with lower quality smallie habitat, lower bass populations, lower growth rates, longer age-at-maturation, lower fecundity and survival. The streams most susceptible to angling pressure and overharvest. Is better fishing in one stream worth poorer angling in others? 1.) Who's advocating a free-for all? 2.) From MO crappie and white bass to coastal redfish and striped bass to western trout, there are scores of examples of well-managed recreational fisheries where harvest occurs without compromising the integrity of the stock. There's also a ton of instances where C&R and other restrictive harvest regimes have failed to produce the intended results. Neither is the solution 100% of the time. 3.) If we're talking about sheer numbers of fish- I just haven't seen any data showing SMB harvest in most MO streams is unsustainable. There's local affects due to popular accesses, campsites, road crossings, etc- but on the whole, SMB populations seem pretty steady even in the face of harvest. Size distribution is another story. 4.) While it's true that it's probably easier to catch fish now than in the past, it's also true that angling pressure is more diffused (technology like jet boats, reservoirs absorbing angler pressure, more public access on streams) And fishing license sales have generally been declining. 5.) You're not going to win any friends calling meat fishers Neandertals Then I'm not sure how much a 15" MLL statewide would help. Smallmouth mature around 11 inches in Missouri streams. Go out and have a ball I'm not disagreeing with you, all I'm saying is that a public resource like smallmouth bass is meant to be enjoyed by as many folks as possible, so long as their activities aren't unduly impacting those resources. There are ways to manage MO smallmouth streams which strike a balance between harvest and trophy angling opportunities. Compromise isn't always a terrible thing. That was awful long, though I tried hard to shorten it. If you finished all of it, I owe you a beer

So a 5-10 pounder doesn't have a shot at reaching world-record sizes?

Out of curiousity...does anyone know if the ice has chlorine in it?

MDC. They make money off license and gear sales. If fewer people are buying licenses or going fishing because they can't creel a limit of smallies, it impacts the agency's funding. Game like deer, turkey, quail, etc, generate a ton of money for the state, and for MDC. Extensive management of those species is worthwhile for the department because of the revenues they produce. It's unclear whether most Ozark streams could become destination fisheries, even with intensive management of their smallmouth populations. Jacks Fork, as an example, has had trophy smallmouth regs for nearly 20 years, and you still don't see people hauling trophy fish out of their hand-over-fist. Some of that has to do with issues like poaching, but a lot has to do with the simple fact that most Ozark streams are pretty low in nutrients, and it just takes an awful long time for smallies to reach the 18 inch mark. Most fish die of old age before they get past 20. Now why would someone fly into St. Louis, spend 2.5/3 hours in a rental car to have maybe a 1 in 100 chance of catching a smallmouth 18 inches or better. They could fly into Detroit or Minneapolis, be fishing in a quarter of that time, and have a better chance of catching similar or larger fish. IMO, there's very little evidence the investment MDC would make in regulation and enforcement would pay off in returns, in terms of revenue generated and heading back to the agency. And since there's little evidence most populations are suffering from overharvest, there's not much of an argument to be made on the species conservation/preservation front. Meanwhile you're barring a segment of the angling demographic from fishing certain stream segmetns, and alienating constituents in the process. When the 1/8 cent sales tax comes up on the ballot, they'll remember that.

Any reason you settled on the Current? You'll be passing up a lot of smallie water that's as good or better.

Interesting logic. If the lake's water quality was so poor that the additional stress of a livewell would be enough to kill the fish, it seems reasonable to assume other stressors- spawning, competition for food, predation, catching, handling and releasing, disease and parasites, natural variations in weather and dissolved oxygen, etc- would have the same effect. Ergo, you'd be seeing lots of fish belly up in the water you're fishing. If recirculation pumps and aerators are working as designed, the water in the livewell should be of pretty similar quality as the water in the lake. You would get some additional stress due to crowding, but that stress is pretty easily manipulated by the angler. Capt- if you could answer a couple more questions it may help figure out what's going on... Are the fish you're catching showing any signs of stress? Lethargy? Poor body condition (skinny, big heads)? Patches of missing scales or fungus? Lesions? Are you having the same results (dead fish in the livewell), no matter what part of the lake you're fishing? Even if you fish different lakes?

I'd rather have a three-eyed tuna than none.

If the lake's water quality was causing the fish in your livewell to die, I expect you'd be seeing thousands of dead fish in the lake itself.

You'll have to replace the trebles on the rapalas with one single-point hook.

Glad to see you got into some fish, were they all browns?

I'm fairly certain the wooly worm/spinner combo is legit in the fly only section, as are the single-point roostertails. Jigs though would certainly be legal, and a good selection of those will likely catch some fish. There's a ton of different recommendations out there, I've always done well with white, black, black/yellow, ginger, and olive.

I may be totally wrong on this, but I thought MODOT and county road departments maintained a 50 or 100 foot right-of-way at bridge crossings to allow for future road widening/expansion?

Sounds to me like you accessed a navigable water of the state via a public easement/right of way. So long as you stay within the channel, legally you'd be fine. But like FishnWrench, it can be a pain fighting these things if the landowner or sheriff doesn't see things your way.

I get your point, but I think Bob retired from the Traveler a few years back; he's an editor-at-large or something of the sort. Some guy in Fenton or Kirkwood or somewheres owns it now, I believe. Just to be clear : )

If anyone's interested, I'll be selling tinfoil hats at an undisclosed location at Bennett next weekend. 10 bucks each, for fifteen I'll throw in a lanyard and a wool hatband to keep your flies or lures on. Secret codeword is Jaguar. PM me for more information, I don't want Big Brother knowing anything more.

I agree with most of what you said, but for better or for worse, it seems like more folks in the Ozarks are of Bob Todd's opinion than are of OTF's- they have a right to keep whatever fish they please, regardless of species. They feel it's part of the Ozark heritage, etc etc. Frankly, I'm not sure what can be done about it. I for one like the management regime as is- it gives folks who want shots at quality sized fish a chance to do so, and it leaves plenty of places for folks to go catch a mess of pan-sized smallies for dinner if they so desire. I'm not sure I'd be willing to go complete C&R or quality regs statewise, if for no other reason than I'd like to see some reasonable compromise between quality anglers and the hook&bullet crowd. But if a quarter or a third of the state's smallie streams were managed for quality fish, leaving the other three-quarters or two-thirds open for folks wanting smallie harvest...it sounds like a reasonable compromise to me, and I doubt it'd be killing anyone that there were reduced or no harvest regs on a small proportion of the state's streams, Bob Todd included. What I'd really love to see is MDC become more engaged with the angling community and general public regarding issues like these. Something more elaborate than their fishing prospects or the 5th-grade reading level stuff they put in the Conservationist, but not so technical you'd need a biology degree to understand it. Just show folks the population data, the creel censuses, growth rates, size distributions, etc. If nothing else it'd give me the warm fuzzies to know people are out their doing their jobs, not just guessing how to manage various fisheries. They should have the data already, putting it into a format which is easy for the public to consume shouldn't be too difficult. One thought I just had was those little ruler stickers they hand out which are designed to help you identify the black basses. Perhaps along with all that info they could do some average age-at-length ruler, showing that at 12 inches a smallie is X years old, at 15 inches the fish is Y years old, etc. Perhaps if someone slapped an 18 inch smallie on that ruler and realized how old it is, they'd be more inclined to release it.

If you haven't already, try and find a copy of Chuck Tryon's "Fly Fishing for Trout in Missouri." Not sure if it's still in print; your local library may have a copy. Lots of information on fly selections, accesses, gear, and all sorts of other stuff. A pretty good book for a beginner, written so most anyone can understand it.

In my experience NFOW can be a pretty tough river, even tougher if you're restricted to wading. Plus I'd be willing to bet it was hammered pretty hard over the holiday weekend. If you caught any fish, you were probably doing things right, at least in the ballpark. It's a helluva fun river though, all I can say is keep at it.

Your best bet would probably be to call or drop by Hargrove's tomorrow. I imagine Tom would be able to tell you more about it, and what repairs (if any) are necessary. Sounds like a nice rod though, have fun with it!

Go to your nearest fly shop or fly catalog and pick out a dozen trout flies between size 8 and size 16 or so. Those will work. Brookies aren't terribly picky, especially small stream fish. A good selection of durable dries and nymphs is all you need. If you want to target larger brookies, you may tie on a small streamer, say an #6-10 bugger, leech, sculpin, etc. And when are you going? If it's soon, you may want to check ahead and find out how the runoff is there. Your best options may be tailwaters and/or stillwaters if the streams are blown out. If it's later in the season, say July-August, make sure to bring plenty of hoppers and ants.

I wound up just driving through- lots of tornadic storms in Iowa and Nebraska, snow and sustained winds of 45-50 mph in the Black Hills while I was there didn't make fishing seem like a fun enterprise. I have been catching my fair share of brookies, cutts, and rainbows out here in Wyoming though, may go visit the Park this weekend or next for grayling. It's a tough life

Yeah, it was one of those situations where you want to go ape@#$! on the guy, then I came to my senses. It was getting dark, and he was camping at Bay Creek, so I made him aware it was illegal to be keeping that many 18+ inch smallies. Next day on my way out I drove by Alley Spring and made some of the park officials aware.