SpoonDog

Isn't Lost Valley Fish Hatchery out your way?

It's a red herring, isn't it? The bill has nothing to do with MDC's expenditures, just adding more commissioners. Why restrict it to last year? I'm headed to the state nursery in the next couple weeks to pick up tree seedlings for the 50 acres of a former cow-calf operation I inherited- red oak, walnut, pecan, plus some shrubs for wildlife and stabilization of streambanks that were wrecked by livestock- benefiting myself, my family, the folks I let hunt there, my neighbors, and downstream landowners. MDC's partnering with ag groups to eliminate wild hogs, doing volunteer outreach with wood duck boxes, holding workshops for elementary teachers, working with nurseries on a native plant sale, offering funds to protect wetlands on private lands, and hosting a youth archery tournament. I know lots of MDC folks assist with 4H and FFA groups, they provide insight on forestry prescriptions and logging contracts among their more mundane projects. It's not hard to come up with a pretty long list of things they do. IMO it's totally worth it.

Fixed. I guess I'm not willing to pretend a bass never takes a hook deeply, never gets one caught in the gills or in the eyes, or never, ever, takes a bounce of an aluminum boat or the carpet or a gravel bar. Accidents happen, and we shouldn't hold others to a different standard than we hold ourselves.

Sounds like what the fisheries specialist (not an agent) is saying is that intentionally gigging sportfish is illegal. No one can stop you from using his admission that in the real world accidents happen as evidence of MDC's anti-smallmouth position. I hate to break the C&R bubble but if you're catching 50 smallmouth a day you're killing a few, and if you think MDC should be fining you for doing so you can petition them to do it. I don't know how you guys rationally justify banning gigging for a decade or more on a stream section when conventional anglers are removing 25%-30% of the population in some reaches every year. If you guys think giggin's such a big problem, I know you're gonna sit on your hands this season. That's never going to happen because the discussion is never "What can WE do?" but rather "What can we get MDC/Giggers/Meat Anglers/Anyone Except Us to do?" It's couched as "conservation" or "protecting" when really it's just looking out for one's self-interest. There's nothing inherently wrong with that- just be honest.

I'm not sure it was in MDC's power to decide trout and redhorse should look so similar when viewed from overhead, but if you guys want to use that fact as justification that they (MDC) has it out for smallmouth and smallmouth anglers, so be it. And if you're willing to use the powers of the state to restrict one group's access to a public resource (I understand you may not want statewide bans, but let's not kid ourselves- "like the trout guys have" means banning gigging somewhere) then you're not opposed to authoritarianism generally, just one which doesn't serve your personal agenda. As much as you may not like giggers (and I've said before I'm not a big fan), they're paying licenses, they're paying into the conservation sales tax. They have just as much right to be there as anyone else. If we're gonna say they don't have the right to access to a public resource because a few are bad actors, or worse yet, because we perceive a few as bad actors- then all of our heads are on the chopping block. Look, I'm sorry if you see the 30+ free, public fishing accesses and conservation areas provided by MDC just within the Meramec watershed as evidence they don't value your fishing. I promise most folks in most mid-south states don't have that level of access provided by their state fish and game agency, particularly so close to a major metro area. And I'm sorry if by working to protect one of the most rapidly urbanizing watersheds in the state through habitat conservation and working with private landowners to maintain aquatic health, you feel MDC isn't interested in your smallmouth fishery. I'm sorry you believe that because MDC won't adopt one specific policy which prevents access of an entire group of anglers, based entirely on the views of another group of anglers, that you're being screwed. Considering everything MDC does, I'm just gonna float the possibility that's an extreme position. Never thought I'd invoke Jonestown or ISIS on a thread ostensibly about gigging, but why not? There's a lot of beaten housewives and beaten kids that go back to normal once the cops show up, it doesn't mean they're not stressed or freaked out and it doesn't excuse what's happened to them. The flip side of this big brain is that it allows us to rationalize a whole lot of repugnant behavior. I don't know how someone lives through Afghanistan or Sudan or Syria, but they do, and it just goes to show folks can be about as resilient as those minnows in a bucket. "Fear" isn't even monolithic in humans- I know folks who lock up at just the sight of a snake, I practically can't help picking up every single one I see. It's incomprehensible to me that someone could be that afraid of something which is basically harmless- then again, get me on a stepladder and I'm practically catatonic. Mortally afraid of heights. Point is- my inability to understand the mechanics of their fear doesn't negate their experience. Some fish, minnows I think, release a chemical into the water when they're "frightened" or when they're attacked by predators that tells all the other members of the species to go berserk. It's one of the reason asian carp jump. It's a chemical response and that makes it sound very clinical and we can divide that from "us," which is fantastic. But it's the same adrenaline response people have when they're fighting a bear or saving an old lady from oncoming traffic. Our feeling of "Zen" is a serotonin dump while the feeling you get when you see ScarJo's outfit in the new Avengers movie is likely the result of phenylethamine. Dopamine kicks in once you've released that big un-gigged smallmouth, it's what we call "satisfaction." Not only that, it's the same thing a drug addict feels- or someone who's had a profound religious experience. It's us who are ascribing "feelings" to chemical reactions- we're anthropomorphizing(?) ourselves. We're less different from everything in the world around us than we would like to believe. and that shouldn't be scary or weird. it just is.

Anything with a nervous system is gonna feel pain, fellas. Whether it's akin to what humans feel I don't know, but it wasn't that long ago folks thought dogs and cats and horses didn't feel pain like we did, either, and we've justified all sort of awful things through history by saying one group of folks doesn't have this or that capacity. Fish feel pain, and if you've ever walked by a hatchery raceway or watched fish chase each other in an aquarium you already know they can feel physiological stress. Some build complex nests using only their jaws or their fins, some can sniff there way home from the oceans, some exhibit a level of parental care you won't see in many humans. Regardless of whether they feel pain "like us" they're pretty neat critters and they deserve respect- that doesn't mean you should beat yourself up about fishing for them, though. I've seen lots of folks kill lots of things they thought were ducks or doves or quail. How many swans were offed this year because someone thought they were snow geese? You set a trap without knowing for certain what animal it'll catch, and I promise a few cats and dogs go missing that time of year. Gigging's no less accurate than any number of things we otherwise find perfectly acceptable. MDC hasn't restricted gigging because they're not in the position of legislating vice. It's easy to understand why dynamite or electricity aren't good for fisheries, and when they did the research to show noodling screwed catfish they banned it- despite the influence of state legislators. And while you guys have been able to show some bass are gigged, you haven't shown (with verifiable numbers) it appreciably impacts the resource. You're entitled to think gigging's a hick thing to do if that's your opinion, but realize the grownups aren't going to make decisions purely because you think something's icky. And for a group of folks who's constant refrain is MDC pays more attention to reservoir or trout or paddlefish or catfish anglers than smallmouth guys, the idea they should restrict another angling group to a certain set of waters is ludicrous. Who ordained you?

It isn't something anyone on the other side's been able to accomplish ;). And how concerned can conservatives be about isolationism when their guy wants to build a gigantic wall along Mexico and ban entry of war refugees? That's a solid position, but not-carpet bombing a country and not-going to war with a country who doesn't have anything to do with 9/11 or chemical weapons isn't. It isn't a sound, serious position. As bad as you guys think isolationism is, intervention certainly hasn't worked in 1990s Iraq or 2000s Iraq or Syria or Somalia or Libya or Sudan or Yemen or Afghanistan and if you guys are as concerned about fiscal responsibility I have to wonder at what point we start wondering "where do we find the money for this demonstrably catastrophic strategy?" Bernie isn't suggesting we exit the world stage, rather that we re-evaluate a policy of just pressing a button and hoping the problem goes away to something that's...you know. Effective. Bombing the heck outta Syria doesn't alleviate the humanitarian crisis, it doesn't take Assad out of power, and if Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Somalia and Yemen are any indication, it may not even dismantle the terrorist network. What's the upside? As far as taxes go, corporations can shed crocodile tears about the 35% tax rate, I'd be a whole receptive if that's what they actually paid. Most companies pay an average of 12.5%, and a fair number of companies don't pay ANYTHING. Add in the cherry benefits many receive for building new factories or distribution centers...I can only imagine how tough it must be having someone throw millions of dollars at you. Poor guys.

Maybe we can knit some smallie-size kevlar sweaters for them?

...you can gig suckers on the most heavily stocked trout water in the state. Although it would be interesting to compare #s of gig-scarred fish in places like the Meramec below the springs, where gigging is prohibited, with other wintering spots and seeing whether there's a difference. It could make a compelling case.

Now we're getting somewhere- because under ideal circumstances in some places and some years 25%-50% of some number of smallmouth have gig scars. Maybe there's some pockets where it's really prevalent, but it's tough extrapolating that across an entire region or even a watershed. I don't gig and I don't know how often MDC agents patrol during gigging season- I'm guessing all of the other folks on here who don't gig don't know, either- maybe it'd be worthwhile to check out casenet. But I don't see what's preventing anyone from tagging along on a shocking trip and counting how many gigged fish they spot, or what's preventing anyone from going gigging and seeing how many people are taking smallmouth instead of just making guesses of what's happening in the dark when we're not there. If it's widespread and prevalent, by all means let's fix it. But IMO it seems like something similar to noodling, where one or two people can have an outsize impact on the resource and it takes an agent in the right place at the right time to make a bust. You can double or triple the number of agents on the ground and STILL not catch the one or two folks doing it. You can put a truck in the parking lot and all it means is they're not gonna go gig a smallie tonight, and anyone who's floated any Ozark stream in summer already knows law enforcement presence doesn't always deter crime. I'm all for enforcement if it's gonna have some sort of payoff. If it's some repeated pattern like Al's describing then yeah, we should give it some attention. But if it's a random crime of opportunity, how many of these "solutions" are feel-good measures as opposed to realistic applications of limited resources that will actually have a positive impact? Yeah, it'd feel really good to make smallmouth gigging as big a deal as killing an elk or a bald eagle, but why legalize poaching? I mean it's tough enough getting folks charged now, seems pretty likely upping the fines just makes sure no one gets charged.

Look, if an MDC biologist says "illegal gigging isn't a problem," and you hear "illegal gigging doesn't happen," the problem isn't the MDC biologist. Yes, there are photos of gigged smallmouth, just as there are photos of smallies poached with other gears. If it takes one boat one night to put a hurt on the smallmouth in one stretch of river, what you're mad at MDC for is their inability to find a needle in a haystack. To be in the right place at the right time. They don't catch every deer or duck or paddlefish poacher either because they can't be everywhere at once, and while I'm all for increased enforcement I'm not sure how you justify putting an agent in every parking lot on a hundred miles of river to catch what's admittedly a small segment of a small group of giggers. Rural agents are not anonymous- they're at the diner, they're at the county fair, they're interacting with landowners and hunters and anglers, they're at high schools helping with FFA and other projects. I don't know what sort of insight we're gonna get into the seemy underbelly of illegal gigging when everyone already knows Duane's the agent :).

Guys, I'm not debating that people gig smallmouth. I'm not even debating you guys see gig-scarred fish. The only difference when I'm looking at a photo of a gigged fish I'm inferring people gig fish, when y'all look at a photo of a gig fish you're inferring poaching's rampant and the season needs to be reduced or eliminated and these guys are having a detrimental impact on smallmouth and depressing trophy fish numbers and that here's some wide-ranging conspiracy to destroy Missouri's smallmouth fisheries. You catch a couple smallies with fresh gig scars and all of a sudden there must be some chest freezer with 300 fillets in it. I'm content admitting some giggers are poaching. I'm content admitting I don't know what goes on at an access when I'm not there. And I'm comfortable admitting I don't know what impact gig-poaching has on the resource. I'm not interested in pretending I know the answer to these questions and I'm not interested in pretending anyone else does, either. No one knows how many giggers are poaching or how many smallies they're keeping or know how many stuck smallies survive and how many wind up turtle food. Acknowledging the fact we don't have the answers to those questions doesn't mean I'm less conservation-minded than anyone else, Dan- and it isn't a dick-measuring competition, anyway. Look, I don't gig. Honestly I could care less if gigging's legal or not. But if we're gonna start talking about restricting or outright banning someone's recreational activity we could at least have the courtesy of doing it based on something resembling facts. I've walked the Jacks Fork in June and I've seen the piles of big dead filleted smallies and I know it wasn't giggers doing it. If we're gonna ban gigging because some giggers poach, I think it's fair to ask what we're gonna do about gear guys because otherwise it's clearly a double-standard. Poaching is a crime period, whether it's a 10" fish or a 20" fish, and giggers have no more opportunity to poach than any other angler.

Love ya Al, but you guys want MDC to pull resources away from crimes which are actually happening so they can look for crimes you imagine are happening? Because when you catch a winter fish with fresh gig scars you assume someone must of kept five or ten or fifteen more? I'm not sure that's the way law enforcement works. And I just don't buy the line gigging's the only way to target big fish when smallies spawn the way they do and when you guys go out to these wintering holes for the express, singular purpose of targeting big fish. What is the percentage of fish caught and released with fresh gig scars, and how poorly are they doing if they're willing to grab your lure? The last week of gigging season there's four dead bass at a boat ramp, and that sucks. Whoever did it ought to be held accountable. But as much water as has been in the Big this winter, how representative is that of what goes on on a daily or weekly basis?

Yes, because whether you keep it or not you still gigged the fish, and gigging sport fish is illegal.

The Wildlife Code is prescriptive, you can't do anything which isn't explicitly stated. Gigging sportfish is explicitly prohibited in the Code, there's nothing that excuses giggers from properly identifying their target, and I know I've read the blurbs in the little reg books about not gigging hellbenders and making sure you know what you're harvesting. When agents are willing to issue citations to folks who don't know the difference between smallmouth and largemouth, or brown trout and rainbows, it seems unlikely they're gonna give someone who mistakes a smallie for a sucker a pass, and I've never heard an agent actually say that. Have you?

I appreciate your guys' passion for the resource, but MDC's never taken the position bass gigging doesn't happen and we've all seen the photos from the citations they issue. And while I give no quarter to poachers, I'm also positive smallmouth bass poaching isn't restricted to giggers. My guess is poaching among giggers is less prevalent than among conventional anglers, if only because there's more barriers to access (boats, generators, bad weather) and because so many fewer people are doing it in the first place. When you guys go on these tears about four dead fish at a boat ramp and the Order of the Overall'ed Giggers which clandestinely directs MDC fishery policy...paranoid's a good word for it. Don't want to dogpile but there's only so many accesses on the lower Big with boat ramps, and I imagine the most effective sting operations are ones where the criminal doesn't know the cops are looking for them. I don't know how many registered users this site has nor do I know how many unregistered users visit daily, but by putting this info up here then contacting the agents, the cat's already out of the bag. I get you're upset, and I'd be pissed if I'd seen it, too. But it's possible you're tipping off the criminals before the agents. If one's chief interest is undermining their position or bashing MDC this thread'll probably get a lot of mileage, I'm just not sure how much honest constructive good will come of it.

You reported it to MDC, right?

It wasn't uncommon for St. Louis to dump ground garbage into the Mississippi during the first half of the 20th century, nor was it uncommon for large cities like Chicago or Seattle to dump untreated sewage into receiving streams and lakes. I don't know why St. Louis would've been any different, there were fish kills on the lower Meramec in the early 60s, ad MDC was complaining about domestic sewage on the lower river in the 70s. Clean Water Act didn't come around until the 1970s and MSD wasn't formed until 1956. Pollution controls weren't in place and most municipal sewage treatment plants back then were glorified cess pools. It's gross now and it needs fixed, but in terms of long-term damage, the Meramec's seen worse.

Right, scholarships. Make a 4.0 and then put your name in this hat with 10,000 others. Maybe we'll pick yours. University of Illinois offers 44 four-year full ride scholarships for their 44,087 students, there's a <1% chance a qualified student gets one. They use merit to winnow down the number of students, but whether you're funded or not depends on sheer dumb luck. If it's really the best model, let's apply it to Social security- you fill out a form and there's a 99% chance you don't get anything back. You can't argue a model with one winner and 99 losers is more fair or more merit-based than a model where everyone who's qualified receives financial aid. And many scholarships aren't dedicated funding streams- they dry up when the economy's in the tank, when students are most likely to need them. A+ is an excellent government-funded university program, worth expanding. Sander's proposal pays for qualified students to attend university, it doesn't relax the entrance requirements. You're not throwing money to kids who haven't worked to get into school, you're giving money to kids who HAVE worked hard, HAVE the grades, but don't have the means to pay tuition. Just tuition. We're not getting them dorm suites and we're not paying their meal plan and we're not getting them season passes to the football games. They're still gonna have to feed themselves and they're still gonna have to clothe themselves and they're still gonna have to get books and supplies and find a place to live. They're not getting a stipend, they'll still have to work. I'm glad you were able to make college work with a wife and kids, and I don't know when you went to school Flysmallie, but lots of folks were able to afford college back when college was affordable. It isn't now, that's the point, and your personal experience may not be as relevant as you think. As nuts as healthcare costs are they're outpaced by college tuition, and it amazes me a society that poops its pants when gas is >$3.50/gallon shrugs when tuition increases 15% in two years, when it's increased 1000%+ since 1978. We owe more in student loan debt than we do in credit cards. Sixty percent of MO students have some form of college debt and the average is $25,000, and while it's easy to sit in the rocking chair yelling "GET A JOB!" it can be tough to do when unemployment among college-age students is double the national level and an employer can choose between working around your 15 credit-hour schedule or hiring someone else. A full-time courseload and two part-time jobs teaches you this firsthand. It isn't making excuses, it's dealing honestly with the world as it actually exists. College should be tough, tougher than it is now. Going to classes, keeping up with the work, reading, studying, exams, midterms, finals, essays, projects, learning to deal with people from diverse backgrounds, thinking critically, defending ideas. All that should be tough. Paying for it shouldn't be. I think we all agree it should be a merit-based system, I just don't think tuition should be a barrier.

That's the crazy part! Total US healthcare expenditures in 2014 were $3.8 trillion. Total discretionary spending- Military, VA Benefits, Medicare, Education, Housing, International Aid, Energy, everything- was $1,11 trillion in 2015. I didn't even know that until I looked it up and it's effin' staggering- as terrible as the feds are and as much money as they squander, they spend less on EVERYTHING, literally all of the things, than we do on just healthcare. What does that make us? I get that you're ideologically opposed to gov't spending, but let's recognize we're all being screwed by the status quo. I honestly don't care whether it's an all-public, public-private, or private-mandate model, I'm just suggesting maybe there's some more effective way of providing healthcare in this nation besides punching ourselves in the crotch every time we go to the doctor's office. Yeah, if you're only reason for getting up in the morning and go to work is for the health bennies, you're probably going to need to find a new motivation. But I'd argue you're probably not living high-on-the-hog with the status quo, either. Bernie's plan doesn't change the fact 100K provides a higher quality of life than 20K, and I don't imagine any number of our nation's wealthy trading in lavish offices for janitor's closets so they can get free healthcare. Lots of people show up for work because they enjoy what they do and they're compensated fairly. Speaking of compensated fairly- adjusted for inflation wages were higher 1950s-early 1980s than they are now, and I doubt people weren't achieving anything then. And heck- what's the incentive to get good grades now if you can't afford college?

Compared to what? Weimar Republic? Haiti? France's democratic government(s)? Egypt? Mexico? Post-Soviet Russia? Venezuela? Libya? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Turkey? Yugoslavia? Iran (Not the one now, the democratically-elected one we deposed)? Guatemala (x2)? Texas? Alllllll the dictatorships we've supported in advance of our democratic principles? What about our own little rough patches in 1791 and again 1861-1865? Heck, despite running an polling place out of her living room in rural Missouri my grandmother wasn't allowed to vote, and during the 1970s it was gov't policy to forcibly sterilize Native American women. I'm not sure socialist societies have the market cornered on failure, or questionable behavior. Just like conservatism there's a whole raft of flavors associated with what some folks blanket-ly (and sometimes mistakenly) deem "socialism." Bernie Sanders' social democracy model is a pretty far cry from the Red-Scare monsters that had you wetting the bed when you were six years old. Of the seven nations ahead of us in terms of standard of living, they're all some form of social democracy. All have some form of socialized medicine- gov't footing the entire bill, public-private partnerships, or in Netherland's case the feds pick up the tab for long-term care while purchasing individual coverage through a private insurer is mandatory. And it works! It costs $25K for a knee replacement in Australia, $13K (including airfare) for an AMERICAN to get the same surgery in Belgium, and...$50K to do it here. As a society, we're collectively dumb enough to pay $150 bucks for a McDouble we can get across the street for $5 so we can be certain the guy with $3.79 can't have any hamburgers, period. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Folks in those countries live longer, on average. There's higher minimum wages in most (converted to USD). Nations like Germany and Norway pay all tuition- even for non-citizens, others have tuition cheaper than what it costs here in the states. Many pay for education- even for non-citizens. And many have economies growing faster than ours. Sure, there's places like Greece- but they're no more an indictment against social democracy than Mexico's an indictment against democracy.

Bernie Sanders isn't advocating taking the fishing poles you've purchased and give them away to your neighbors. He's suggesting we use government to make sure everyone has access to fishing poles, if they want them. There's a very similar ideology that suggests Cruz or Trump or Rubio give Jerry five rods and crosses his finger, hoping Jerry's a good enough guy to keep one and hand four out to his less fortunate buddies. Now you may be thinking "That's socialism!" because the outcome's identical to what Bernie's proposing and Bernie's a socialist. But you're wrong- it's trickle-down economics, and it's the centerpiece of conservative domestic policy. Both candidates' objective is to use the government to put more money in your pocket- whether it's through a higher minimum wage (Sanders) or through tax breaks to the wealthy (R's generally). The problem I have with the latter approach is it's asking folks who have pinned their entire professional career on not throwing money out the window to suddenly have a change of heart. I mean, aside from the fact that we keep trying it and the income gap keeps growing. But the point is- while the nuts and bolts of the two approaches are a little different, the general principle and the outcome- using government policy to redistribute wealth- is identical. If that's your definition of socialism, dang near every Republican for the past 40 years has been a socialist and you guys haven't been terribly upset by it.

I mean it's gross and needs to be fixed, I'm not trying to defend MSD. I think the fish, if they get stressed, will move upstream above the poop plume, or downstream into the Mississippi, or up into the Big or towards the mouths of feeder creeks. It may screw up the spawn for white bass and walleye this spring, it may give asian carp a teensy little boost through increased plankton production, but I'm not sure there will be any long-term negative impacts. It's basically just a four month return to how we treated sewage in the 1950's, and folks were still catching fish out of the Meramec back then.

Most sewage treatment plants don't remove all the nutrients like nitrogen or phosphorous, they don't remove hormones, they don't remove salts, they don't remove chemicals. The only thing entering the Meramec right now that wasn't entering the river two months ago is the physical poop, the tampons, the baby wipes, the flushed goldfish. Those things contribute to low dissolved oxygen when the water gets still and hot, but it isn't a long-term threat to the watershed like Times Beach or Bonne Terre.

Maybe I missed something, but if we're suggesting Uncle Sam pick up the tab for a kid's education only if they join the military, it seems pretty unavoidable. Lower income students are going to be more compelled to take advantage of that offer than higher income students, who can afford to pay the full price tag of admission. Plus, not everyone is fit to serve. A diabetic can sit in a lecture hall. A diabetic cannot join the military. I know for a fact GI benefits have been instrumental in getting degrees, and I know folks who tanked high school, grew up in the military, and came out the other end with the discipline to excel and complete their degrees. That ain't a bad thing. But it isn't a route that's open to everyone, and as I said if it were some sort of national service program generally I'd be all on board.