Outside Bend

I tend to think of it as that driving anecdote- When polled, most everyone rates their own driving skills as "good" or "excellent." But the statistics don't back that up. We all want to believe we have as minimal an impact on the resource as possible, that every fish we release swims off uninjured and ready to fight another day. But the reality is that some of the fish we catch will likely die as a result of our angling, and I freely admit I've bungled fish before. Fish will die in any of the scenarios listed, and IMO the best we can do is be responsible, and conscious of proper handling techniques.

I understand where you guys are coming from NoLuck, and I understand bioaccumulation is why a lot of the predator and bird of prey numbers dropped drastically. All I'm saying is, if you're lacing animal food (grass, seed, insects, etc) with poison, it makes sense the animals eating the poisoned food would be...poisoned. Whether they're so poisoned they die immediately, or die after multiple exposures, or live but can no longer functionally reproduce, they've still been affected by DDT.

I guess it always seemed inevitable to me- as the west becomes more urbanized, critters are going to do what they need to in order to survive. If that means using river corridors to find new territory, so be it. You'd have thought, in the 20 or so years that mountain lions have been reported in this state, that MDC would've developed a much better contingency plan than what we've seen the last month or so. It's time for the state to decide how they're going to deal with mountain lions- either they're a protected species and their are criteria which constitute "a danger to livestock and people," or they're unprotected and it's open season. Until then, every decision they make is going to be an arbitrary one.

So you're suggesting that if I laced your salad with rat poison, you wouldn't be affected, because you're eating too low on the food chain and all. Right?

I dunno.... Turkeys and geese are birds. DDT affected birds. Turkeys eat insects. DDT was used to control insects. Turkeys eat insects. Other birds that eat insects (Robins, quail, etc) were affected. Snow geese eat grain. DDT was applied to grain fields, even in spring, to protect against rodents and insects, when geese would've been flying back north and stopping to feed. How can you say conclusively DDT never impacted either population?

Yappie dogs have nothing to fear from this cougar invasion.

The timing actually makes. They're trying to get to Soulard just in time for Mardi Gras.

Cougars in west St. Louis County isn't news, folks. I see 'em all the time in Schnucks.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm not saying it's ethical. I'm saying it has little or no impact on the fisheries, especially stacked against other factors like drought, flood, predation, and lack of adequate spawning gravel. I'm not saying stream closures are a bad idea- in streams where the trout don't spawn during winter, in streams which see a lot of angling pressure, they make sense. I'm saying in our streams, they'd have no practical, biological effect. If there's no impact, what's the point in creating the regulation? It's an ethical issue, not a biological one, and I'd rather MDC base it's management decisions on biology as opposed to what gives a subset of the angling public the warm & fuzzies. The same with barbless. Most managers realize it has no practical impact on the fishery, aside from reducing lesions and damage to the fishes' mouth. That's why you see those regs most often on high-traffic destination fisheries like Yellowstone and the White River- folks don't want to spend a few thousand dollars catching mangle-mouthed fish that look like they've already been caught a half-dozen times. It's purely cosmetic- another moral/ethical choice that has little or no impact on the fishery, and ought to be outside the scope of MDC's jursidiction. . It's semantics. The system is biologically constrained to allow so many 18 inch fish. The fish are biologically constrained to top out around 18 inches. MDC could change the regs to C&R and be in the exact same place they are now. So what's the point in changing the regs to C&R? I'm genuinely sorry you feel that way about MDC, as on many big issues they've taken a pretty firm stance- from gravel mining to chip mills to the enrichment of the James River. But it's not MDC's fault Ozark springs are nutrient poor when compared to Arkansas tailwaters. It's not MDC's fault that Ozark trout streams' flow and temperature fluctuates more than Arkansas tailwaters. It's not MDC's fault most wild rainbows in the state top out around 18 inches before dying. That's the resource we have, and MDC's job is to work within those biological parameters to maximize the resource for everyone. It seems a lot of your ire is misdirected.

hide yo' kids, hide yo' wife, hide yo' husband too... I'm not sure why I immediately thought of that, but it made me laugh. Thanks.

From my experience they tend to really gravitate towards the pools of small streams, particularly in areas with rootwads and other woody cover. Maybe placing traps in there would be more effective. I've also caught tons of them from small streams using white 1" curlytailed grubs, though I haven't tried it this time of year before. If you have two folks and a seine, I've had success scaring them out from rootwads and sycamores attached to the bank of small streams. It's hard to explain, but you basically make a C around the rootwad with the seine, then have a guy inside the C kick around and underneath said rootwad, scaring the chubs and other critters into the seine. If all else fails, a backpack electrofisher works wonders : )

Leonard, I PM'ed you the addy. With the 8-10 inches of snow we got here, I ought to have mine done in the next few days

Let me see if I can explain it another way... Trout die. It's not romantic or poetic or pleasant, but it happens. A lot. Especially in wild trout streams. Due to competition, predation, disease and other factors, many fish don't make it. As long there are enough to spawn, though, the system keeps chuggin' along. "Progressive" fishing regulations like barbless-only produce a mortality rate of around 1-3%, which is easily absorbed by the population, given that as many as 50% of the fish are going to die anyway. I'm not saying barbless is a bad idea- I use them because they reduce mangled mandibles and are easier to get out of my own skin. I'm saying implementing barbless regs under the guise of "it helps trout survival" is a pious load of BS. MDC isn't jumping on C&R for wild trout streams because the 1 fish over 18" rule accomplishes practically the same goal without the headache of changing regs. Even with C&R regs the chances of a wild Missouri trout making it to 18" are extremely low, the chances an 18" fish is going to make it to another spawning season are lower still. Whether the fish dies in a creel, from natural causes, or by a self-righteous C&R guy with 7x tippet, the end result is still the same. You're killing a fish which was probably going to die anyway, and not having any significant on the population as a whole in the process. It's compensatory mortality, not additive- chances are good you're killing a fish which was going to regardless. The stream closure thing I could go along with. Then again, angling pressure & traffic on wild trout streams during the spawning season isn't that high to begin with, and I'd bet a lot of the folks out on those streams at that time are aware what's going on biologically. Not to mention wild trout populations on Missouri streams appear to be pretty stable, and natural effects like flood and drought probably have more impact on population fluctuations than folks tromping through redds. But ignoring all that, I think simply educating anglers to watch out for redds & spawning fish would be as effective, and again with less headaches, than mandatory stream closures. The Arkansas regs no doubt make sense for Arkansas- you're managing world-renowned trophy trout fisheries for hundreds of thousands of visiting anglers. You have to have restrictive regulations like C&R and barbless hooks, just to maintain the caliber of fishing that made the area famous in the first place. In truth, Missouri and Arkansas are doing the exact same thing- attempting to maximize a finite resource for the greatest number of anglers. But there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I picked it up last week at the library and have been working on it, definitely a good read so far.

Looks like it'll be close between your question and the third one. Good luck!

Troutfiend- There are any number of streams in Yellowstone managed under barbless hook, C&R Cutthroat regs, but where the fish top out anywhere from 8-12 inches. On the flip side, there are streams in the park which provide limited harvest and regularly produce trophy-sized fish. All I'm saying is that systems vary, and what works on one stream doesn't necessarily work on another. "Progressive" regulations may work well in Arkansas, but you could put the same regs into effect on MO streams and see little or no benefit. As for the 1 18" fish rule- what I'm saying is it's de facto C&R. Most of the folks fishing Blue Ribbon streams aren't there to keep a trophy, and most wild rainbows in the state top out around 18" anyway. We all know there's an angling demographic in the state vehemently opposed to C&R regs, so why fight that fight if you can achieve the same objective under the same name?

But if those systems weren't as productive as they are, they wouldn't be producing as many high-caliber fish. Ozark trout streams aren't nearly as productive as a tailwater system. You can place all the same regulations on Missouri wild trout streams as Arkansas has on its tailwaters, that doesn't mean it will translate into a fishery anywhere comparable to what Arkansas has. What is the value in managing for an unrealistic goal?

I'm actually pretty impressed at how rapidly this is getting done. Hopefully it will be more successful than reintroducing grouse, but less successful than reintroducing otters

Yep, found it. Thanks!

I still love One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, both the book and the movie...

I have a hard time believing this guy made a dead-on shot between the eyes while believing his life was in imminent danger, and I really don't buy his story for a second. But he's the only one who knows what went on that night, and there doesn't seem to be enough evidence to prove otherwise. Maybe MDC shouldn't charge him for poaching, but the guy should at least have to reimburse the department for costs associated with the investigation. I'm not betting on it though, and it's a shame MDC's not moving forward with some sort of reimbursement, but I understand they're lack of motivation- they could make a lot of enemies, from the Farm Bureau to state legislators to the average farmer/landowner- they'd be making their jobs tougher in the future, and it's arguably not worth the fight. Doesn't make sweeping it under the rug right, though.

Jeff- Your flies came in yesterday. Not sure what happened, but they're here. No worries

You've got it backwards- imagine a guy who makes $500,000 a year raiding your pantry, and you'll have an idea of what's going on in many of these third world fisheries.

Not to mention that many third world nations have had their marine fisheries decimated by the fleets of "developed" nations, which had already mismanaged and exhausted their own fishing grounds...

I think the term is "Keepin' it Real"