Outside Bend

I see what you're saying F&F, I just think it's a pretty liberal definition of the term "zoo." MDC's elk zone is as much a zoo as Yellowstone, where bison are shot for leaving Park boundaries with some regularity. We can define that management regime as a zoo, but I don't understand why it's a bad thing. We're still getting ecosystem benefits, we're benefitting the Ozark landscape. I understand it's not optimal, but it's what we can reasonably do. I agree establishing elk throughout the Ozarks is the optimal solution, I just don't see the rationale that no elk is a better compromise than some elk.

And we can question the value of building and maintaining waterfowl hunting areas, installing fish structure on Table Rock, stocking private impoundments, reintroducing prairie chickens, or any other big MDC project. I'd agree it's probably unwise to begin an elk program given current budget issues, the spending itself is no different than any other project. Aside from generating revenue for the department and tourism dollars for an economically depressed part of the state, Ozark woodlands were historically shaped and influenced by the presence of elk. Elk grazing influences the pref many plant species, helping promote woodland diversity. They also alter woodland succession, browsing down shade-tolerant maples and in turn benefiting deer, turkey and other wildlife.

True, but there's 1.5 milliion deer in this state vs. 40 elk. Even when the population reaches its peak we're only talking about 400 animals, a density of one elk per square mile, as opposed to about 20 deer per mile in the state. Colorado has nearly 400,000 elk, and a human population similar to Missouri. Even with all those elk they only record about 100 animal/vehicle collisions a year. And if we're concerned about motorists, plenty of means have been devised to keep large animals off roadways and warn drivers about their presence.

Nice walleye by anyone's estimation, good on the kid and you both! How many times has he asked to go back out since?

They were living in Kentucky, how happy could they have been? Reintroducing elk provides a motive to better manage Ozark woodlands- that's what I was saying. I see what you're saying F&F, I even agree to some extent. But MDC routinely eliminates deer and geese when they become a nuisance, not to mention foxes, raccoons, otters, and other animals. MDC's policy toward elk isn't much different from their policy with other animals that can cause problems for people. I'd love to see elk given free reign to wander wherever they want in this state and beyond- but with all the politics and ag interests, it's just not feasible. Even if elk reintroduction benefits only 350 square miles of Ozark woodlands, I see that as better than nothing.

That's fine. My understanding is elk are just as native as ducks (or quail), and just as capable of doing well when reintroduced to MO. Managing forests for elk creates habitat for many different species, just like managing wetlands or grasslands for quail does. The department even developed areas to concentrate elk for hunting and viewing- just like they have for waterfowl. MDC has taken a page out of the waterfowl playbook to manage elk- same benefits, same talking points, same management regimes. So why is MDC managing for elk bad, and MDC managing for waterfowl good? I understand you think there's a big difference, but explain the big difference.

It'll be an interesting season- lots of streams that wouldn't dry till July or August are already pretty thin, making spawning tough on lots of different species. Then again, lots of species spawned earlier than normal this season, so maybe it won't be so bad. Only time will tell.... I wonder if we'll have more bear encounters...

Lots of schools don't have the funds to support extracurriculars like this, but if BASS and other groups got involved with local school districts, I think they could pull it off. Lots of flyfishing clubs already do talks and demonstrations for local schools, and a bass fishing/mentoring program sounds like a pretty positive thing to me.

http://gis.dhss.mo.gov/Website/FishAdvisory/FishAdvisory.html#app=414&bda9-selectedIndex=1 That link should take you to a map of the state showing the different fish advisories by water body.

And restoring elk habitat promotes native vegetation, creates savanna, open woodlands, and other habitats which benefit hundreds of species. What's the difference? I don't thing MDC screwed up reintroducing elk, I think they screwed up reintroducing elk at the expense of everything else, including their credibility. They're constantly worried about the effect of politics on conservation, yet seem content moving forward with an extremely expensive project based mostly on PR and tourism as opposed to science. But I do think their could be a silver lining- if reintroducing elk spurs the Department and private landowners to manage their property with an eye towards restoring the ecology of Ozark woodlands, I think that's a good thing. If it spurs those entities to simply create a giant elk petting zoo, I think we've missed the whole point.

How is creating wetlands to blast ducks any different than creating range to blast elk?

I generally agree, I'm just extending that philosophy to "modern" music. Just because it's the best selling or most visible doesn't necessarily mean it's the highest quality- but that's true of any art or music.

For better or for worse, it's the deal MDC struck with local landowners- if elk become a problem, they'll be removed.

Awesome! My summer to-do list is filling up pretty rapidly, but I'm going to try to build another long rod in there somewhere.

Being talented doesn't ensure commercial success and vice versa, but many talented artists wind up commercial successes. It's true in music, it's true in sports, it's true in almost any trade- if you have the talent, and the drive, you tend to succeed. And with success comes reward.

You mean guys like these will never make it? : ) The music industry throws money at acts they can market- sometimes it's because they're talented musicians, sometimes it's because they're really attractive, sometimes it's because they don't mind wearing a suit of raw meat. I'd agree that it's easier for a less talented, better looking individual to break into the market than a very talented, less attractive individual- but that's life. I don't agree with it, but it happens all the time, not just in music.

Lots of poetry doesn't rhyme, and lots of songs have no lyrics. Does that mean the people making them aren't talented? And while you're right no rapper has won AI, there have been many rap artists whose record sales have trounced that show's winners. I agree that not all rap is good, some rap artists lack talent, and that the highest grossing rap albums aren't the best examples of what the form can do. But the exact same arguments can be made about pop or rock or country. Saying all rap is bad because some artists aren't talented makes as much sense as saying all rock is bad because ABBA and ICP exist. All genres have their good and bad, it doesn't necessarily say anything about the genre as a whole. I'd disagree- Black Keys, Jack White and his projects, and several other groups come immediately to mind. The thing is that the music industry is so fragmented now- so many genres and subgenres that a lot of music gets passed over so that they can cultivate the big money-generating acts. Plenty of good music still out there, you just won't necessarily hear it on the radio- you have to go out and look for it.

Not sure what jihadis or Gitmo has to do with anything. But no, I don't why rap should be held to a higher standard than any other music genre. Violence is violence, the messenger is irrelevant. If we're comfortable with Johnny Cash singing about strapping a woman to a chair and shooting her, or a Willie Nelson song about strangling a woman to death- do we really have room to complain about violence in rap. It just seems like a double standard. But yeah, the video looks like fun on multiple levels : )

How many blues and country songs are about murdering spouses or loved ones, cheating, alcoholism, prison, marriage out of wedlock, illegal activities, feuds, vendettas, and vigilante justice? Some of the most well-known country and folk songs give reverence to folks like Jesse James; personally I don't see how that's different from idolizing a modern thug. Country, blues, and other music genres are plenty subversive, seems sorta arbitrary to say it's something only found in rap. I'm not sure how out-of-wedlock birth rates correlates to the quality of art, but it seems like an odd metric- given how much art and music has been influenced, even generated, by extramarital relationships, recreational drugs, and other illicit activities. I'm not a huge fan of rap, or dubstep, or a lot of other music tastes. But I'll defend it as a craft, something you have to work to be good at, and if it isn't art, it certainly approaches it. If folks don't like it, fine. But if folks are saying it's bad because of the content or the message, we need to be honest with ourselves and throw a whole lot of art and media in the trash bin, too.

Don't mean to derail the thread, but this sentiment has come up more than once, and I guess I still don't get it. If the upper river's in private hands, and the upper river's getting trashed by ATVs, it seems hard to say that commercializing the river has hurt more than private ownership. There's a lot of issues on ONSR property, and I too feel enforcement of issues like ATVs and illegal horse crossings must be addressed. But same issues also exist on private lands. Some of the worst land stewards are government agencies like the BLM and the Corps of Engineers. Some of the best land stewards are private groups like the LAD Foundation and the Nature Conservancy. They're not monolithic groups, and I don't see how a pissing contest over who treats their land better accomplishes anything for stream conservation. Landowners (public or private) will work to protect streams if they see value in stewardship. They may find that value through a myriad of ways- protecting stream ecosystems, enhancing sportfish populations, reducing flooding, soil loss, and gravel deposition, providing riparian habitat for birds and other animals, growing quality, sustainable timber, maintaining or improving their livestock production, improving water quality, preserving recreational areas for posterity- whatever. If they're not seeing some benefit to protecting a resource, they're going to drag their feet. I don't think government intervention is always the best way to affect change, I don't necessarily think it's wise for the gov't to tell landowners how to manage their property, and I believe it'd be foolish to assume all private landowners are inept when it comes to stream conservation. But I also believe their are many landowners out there who don't realize the impact they're having, that it's also affecting their property and business, and that doing things the way they've always been done has a downside, too. Fencing cows out of streams and drilling wells for livestock costs money- so does losing acreage to watering livestock downstream of leaky septic systems. Private landowners are perfectly capable of managing their own property, they just need to be educated on the issues and what's at stake for them personally, not just the recreation or angling crowds.

My guess would be that the low-humidity of a freezer helps evaporate/sublimate some of the water in the fish. Not positive, but that's my WAG

Removing it won't hurt the pond ecosystem, and could help substantially. When that algae dies and sinks to the bottom, its decomposition can reduce the dissolved oxygen of the pond pretty substantially, and can ultimately lead to stressed or dead fish.

I'm not talking about moving it from one creek or river to another, just keep it from washing back into the pond. Throw it on the back side of the dam. The algae locks up nutrients- throwing it on the bank so those nutrients can just wash back into the pond is an exercise in futility.

It sounds like you're describing filamentous algae- that's usually caused by too many nutrients going into the pond, often from folks fertilizing lawns and golf courses. Manually removing it helps, especially if you move the algae you collect out of the pond's watershed. Reducing the application of fertilizers and letting the grass grow up around the pond helps quite a bit too, although that may not be feasible. Copper sulfate will kill the algae in the short-term, but it'll come back year after year.

I see your point, Daryk. But don't think Johny Morris is tossing and turning at night worrying about the money he's losing to local bait dealers. They're in different businesses- the big stores have largely captured the market for high-return items, leaving the mom-and-pop shops to fill the niches with products and services not found at BPS or Cabela's. Rods, reels, lines, artificial lures- they don't need to be housed, they don't need to be fed, they have an indefinite shelf life, they can be sold at several times what it costs to produce them. Maintenance and overhead is lower, so that's what the big tackle shops sell. Saying that business model competes with your local mom-and-pop is like saying the $50-a-plate steakhouse competes with your local greasy spoon- kind of, but not really. They're in the same business, but it doesn't mean they're catering to identical markets. The new rule applies equally to mom-and-pop tackle dealers AND the major players. The local shops aren't at any disadvantage- they still get to pick what they sell and, if they want, can sell the same products at the same prices as the major tackle retailers. But it's up to consumers to decide. If the bulk of anglers were genuinely concerned about the fate of local tackle shops, local tackle shops wouldn't be in the position they're in. They wouldn't be relying primarily on bait sales to stay afloat. They wouldn't be bleeding sales to box stores- anglers would be willing to pay the premium on rods, reels, artificial lures, etc to keep the local guys in business. If anglers are concerned about the fate of their local businesses, they should put their money where their mouth is, and patronize local businesses. MDC's job is to protect our state's natural heritage. Not to protect or support small businesses. The new rule doesn't mean MDC is behaving maliciously, it doesn't mean they're supporting one business ahead of another, it doesn't mean they're trying to stick it to the little guy. It means they're doing their job.