SpoonDog

I was down the other week and fish were coming up on top sporadically, a few caddis mostly around the bushes and some BWO looking things around #20-22. Caught fish on cracklebacks, tried a madame x and didn't get much love. Good luck!

That's the trouble, MOCarp- I've never owned a bowfishing rig. I've never held a bowfishing rig. I've never been bowfishing a day in my life, and I've mentioned at least twice I like fishing for carp. Your position on this issue requires misrepresenting the information available- and if it were more reasonable, more rational, really just a better position over all, you wouldn't have to. I'm not opposed to asking the question or finding the answer in an objective way, and that's already been done. People have already objectively looked at fish stomachs. People have already looked objectively at how carp removal or exclusion effects aquatic communities- on some level you understand that, because you mentioned one such study on page three. The questions you're asking have already been answered objectively, and for whatever reason you will not accept that. You want to answer the same question with lower quality, subjective, biased data- and then claim the results are more precise than existing studies using higher quality, objective, unbiased data. I'm not afraid of the answers, MOCarp. The way you're trying to answer the question is totally asinine. There's an abbreviation in science, CICO, in keeping with the board's profanity policy we'll say it means "carp in, carp out." Finding the photo of the skinniest fish and claiming it's the average fish is bogus. It's junk. Pretending I didn't provide the gizzard shad info in my response and that it's still unknown is bogus. The guy in the blue cat video doesn't positively ID that pile of goo in the fishes' stomach, and if digested carp are so tough to ID that a biologist in a research paper can't be trusted, it's ridiculous to think the dude in the armchair watching a youtube video can. Insinuating the only reason I object is because I'm a bowfisherman, when I'm not a bowfisherman, is bogus. You can take garbage information, put it into a well designed study, and all that comes out the other end is a garbage study. CICO. Garbage studies have no value. To me it's a smarter use of limited money and resources to create something WITH value, as opposed to something WITHOUT value. If you want a study done, make a stronger argument. But if you're not interested in looking at the information out there honestly or objectively, if you're not interested in thinking critically about your own position, if all you want to do is spin your wheels on bad analogies comparing carp to trout, or carp to gar, or carp to wild horses...there's really no point in pretending you're interested an actual, honest discussion. If you're only interested in doubling back on trivia about how carp are more nutritious than trout, as though that has any bearing on the topic at hand and in spite of any new information presented, there's no point in pretending you're interested in an actual, honest discussion. I'm bored, and it's lunchtime. Have fun.

I can google photos of flatheads eating basketballs. That doesn't mean basketballs are an important food item for flatheads or that catfish population health is dependent on basketball density in Missouri streams and reservoirs. It just means that sometimes, for whatever reason, flatheads eat basketballs. Evidence that an event occurs is not evidence that it occurs frequently. You've provided evidence bass eat carp, and that's great. But what you need to do is show bass are so dependent on carp they'll also be harmed by bowfishing. You showed carp are more nutritious than rainbows, and you're probably right that a bass would eat the most nutritious food item available. Which explains why they don't eat carp- they ring in around 860 calories/gram when you factor in bones, scales, and spines, while sunfish ring in around 1100 calories/g and gizzard shad around 1220 calories/g. If carp aren't the most nutritious food item around there's no reason to suspect they'll be favored by bass, which is awesome because they're not- not in Stockton, in 2001, before bowfishers "decimated" carp populations, when carp were still abundant and bass could've eaten them, but didn't. What were they eating? Shad and sunfish. I'm glad you know the definition of anecdotal. I hope you understand the definition, 'cause it's gonna get real important, real quick. When you see that photo of the skinny, typical fish, it definitely raises eyebrows. Then you visit the website. It's really interesting that out of all the photos on the website, the "typical" fish is far and away the skinniest. All these fish- the twenty healthy looking ones and the one skinny feller- all came from lakes with keep and kill regs for common carp. So what's the relationship between healthy bass and common carp, and why should anglers ignore what we're seeing... That's the trouble with anecdotal evidence, bud. Because it's gathered informally and relies largely on personal testimony, it's really susceptible to subjectivity and bias. Scientific evidence attempts to put the subjectivity and the biases on a shelf to determine what's actually happening as opposed to what we think is happening. It's the best BS meter we've come up with to date. Anecdotal evidence isn't always bad - nor is it always objective. That's the difference, that's why they're not interchangeable.

Nice work. I threw some swamp milkweed seeds in the ditch last fall and this season they sprung up with about a dozen monarch caterpillars. I didn't realize they'd march uphill towards the house and pupate on the eaves, still had about a dozen make the transition before heading on south. Pretty neat to watch, definitely one of those things that makes you feel pretty small, realizing this little bug's gonna make a couple-thousand mile trip.

Maybe we shouldn't make management decisions based on youtube videos? No, because there are many different reasons why a fish would be skinny. Anglers watching bass chase down carp, catching bass with distended stomachs full of baby carp, catching fish that are puking up baby carp in the boat- that's anecdotal evidence. A high school kid doing a science project and finding loads of baby carp in bass stomachs is anecdotal evidence. You're picking one possible explanation to the exclusion of all others, and insisting a fishery ought to be managed based on your unsubstantiated claim. As you've said- carp have been around 140 years and in all that time with all those diet studies there's never been any indication they make up a significant proportion of bass diets. Only if carp make up a significant proportion of bass diets. There's no reason to think they do, because carp don't show up in bass stomachs. Three and a half ounces of sheep testicles have 26 grams of protein, 380 mg of Potassium, and 26% of my recommended daily allowance of Phosphorous. But in order to assimilate that nutrition, I have to eat balls. Their nutritive value unless I put 'em in my mouth, chew 'em all up, and get 'em down in my tummy-tums. If I woke up tomorrow morning and all of the sheep testicles all over the world were gone- if there were no chance of ever eating a sheep testicle again- I wouldn't starve to death. Because I don't eat sheep testicles. From the diet studies I've seen common carp are the sheep testicles of the aquatic realm- yeah, they're around; yeah, you can eat them, but no one's knocking down doors to get at 'em. If bass aren't eating carp, I don't understand the value in spending money and resources investigating whether they'll starve when something they weren't eating in the first place is removed from the system. (sorry Phil).

You're not providing anecdotal evidence, MOCarp- you're repeating an unsubstantiated claim. There's no reason to assume some predator/prey relationship between bass and carp when you can actually just look in the bass' stomach. That research has already been done, there's no reason to keep doing a study over and over again hoping to find the results you like. That's not good science. You'd never confuse or compare groundhogs and Hampshire hogs despite their similarity in name. Common carp and asian carp are two entirely different things, and there's no reason to think a largemouth would eat one just because it eats the other. Carp and gobies are different things, and there's no reason to think MO bass will eat common carp because MI bass eat gobies. You're still hung up on drawing relationships between unrelated things. After asian carp displaced 80% of the gizzard shad, minnows, and other forage fish on the Illinois River, bass started eating them- maybe because they're better forage, but definitely because they're one of the few things left to eat. Where there may have been a dozen different forage fish species before, the bass population now is almost entirely dependent on one. After gobies displaced most of the sculpins, most of the darters, most of the crayfish, and most of the other prey items, Great Lakes smallies started eating round gobies. When all that was left to eat was invasive species, sportfish eat invasive species. All the complexity in the original food web provides stability- if the population of prey item X crashes, there's still prey item F, Y S,Q, Z and R to exploit. In these systems invaded by non-native species, all of that complexity is reduced to one predator eating one prey species. If that prey species crashes, there's no safety net. It's a lazy, irresponsible way of managing our natural resources for future generations. I don't mind carp- I like fishing for them, and some aquatic habitats are so degraded they're one of the only sportfish opportunities available. But like asian carp or zebra mussels or round goby, they're not entirely benign in our native aquatic ecosystems. That's just the reality of the world we live in. That reality should be reflected in ecosystem management.

Correlation does not imply causation. Foxes eat rabbits. You can look inside a foxes' stomach or at its scat and see little bits of rabbit. There's a relationship between foxes and rabbits. But anglers and biologists have been cutting open bass tummies for a while now, and they pretty rarely see common carp- despite, as you mention, the fact that there's probably billions of baby carp out there. If there's alllllll those baby carp out there and they're rarely winding up in bass stomachs, it'd be totally unreasonable to claim carp are an important forage species for bass. It's just not supported by the facts. It's great there's a lake in Texas where carp and bass do fine. Austin's about as different from Missouri as Missouri is from Madison, WI- and throughout many northern lakes carp have caused serious environmental damage. Holding up a few examples where carp have been mostly benign doesn't mean that's representative, or that we should ignore the instances where they've become a real problem. The intellectually honest thing to do is say carp have the potential to seriously wreck aquatic ecosystems- and knowing that should we, as anglers, encourage their persistence? The folks who stocked trout and the folks who stocked pheasants didn't understand the consequences of their actions. Both are excellent examples of exactly why we SHOULD learn from past mistakes, why we SHOULD be hesitant to introduce or encourage the persistence of non-native species. We know the consequences of carp on aquatic ecosystems and I don't think it's wise to ignore them. At the end of the day you're arguing we should knowingly take a position which may negatively impact native wildlife, because in the past people unknowingly took the same approach. That instead of learning from their mistakes, we'll use them to justify making our own. I still think that's bad policy.

Lake X produces big bass and big carp, so the bass in Lake X must be eating baby carp? Maybe, but the conclusion isn't really drawn from the observation. Could be that the lakes are just more productive, that they have a longer growing season in CA or TX than in MO, or any other cause that isn't being considered. Lots of diet studies have been done, I don't know of any showing bass eat lots of baby carp. Bass spent the last however-many million years evolving independently of common carp- they'll be fine. At the end of the day it's an argument that we should introduce or manage an invasive species- one with documented negative impacts on native fish and wildlife, one which bass may not even actually eat- for the benefit of trophy fisheries. To me, that's bad policy.

Real bummer, I always enjoyed reading his thoughts and stories here. He'll be missed, for sure.

If that were the case, we wouldn't need to provide H1B visas for doctors, engineers, biochemists and other researchers to come in from overseas. Of course universities will survive and change, the question is whether a shift from affordable, accessible college to unaffordable, inacessible college represents an positive change. I don't think most folks would seriously argue their kids are better off because their kids carry more debt.

Yep. Probably could've been paid more for less work, but I'm doing what I always wanted and it keeps me happy enough. And as Al and FlySmallie said, there's a lot of courses and experiences I had in college that had pretty substantial positive impacts on the way I see the world.

That's a good point, OTF. Many smaller programs are in jeopardy, and it isn't just philosophy and underwater basket weaving. If you're a medical or engineering program where professors are bringing in a few million dollars annually from NIH or DoD grants, you're safe. If you're an ag or natural resources program where profs bring in a fraction of that money annually, your future is uncertain. It means the students planning to go back home and take over the family farm may not receive the education to do it sustainably, in an ecologically conscious manner, which doesn't harm fish and wildlife habitat. It means we have fewer and less qualified students who'll become our conservation agents, our foresters, and our management biologists. That's a situation which directly, negatively impacts all of us.

Something I'd maybe do once, I just can't get the mental image of grabbing onto something not-catfish...turtle, beaver...outta my head. It's cool that they tag them, it'd be interesting to see how frequently they recapture the big ones and whether the same fish are using the same spots.

They have the same access, as a matter of fact I think it was tougher to get accepted into college then, at least that's my impression, colleges seemed to be more selective. And with what, a ten fold increase in tuition rates since I went in the 80's, there doesn't seem to be an equal improvement in what students receive. Granted there is inflation, but prices haven't increased 10 fold since the 80's except in health care. Emphasis added. The increases in tuition aren't adding to Mizzou's budget as much as they're compensating for state cuts. If the state used to underwrite 30% of the cost but now only underwrites 10%, that leaves 20% that needs to come from somewhere. The state's shifted that responsibility from themselves to the students, hence the tuition increases. Being accepted to college is meaningless if you can't actually afford to go. I'm still saying academics and work ethic should be the deciding factors, not cost. A college education isn't the only path to wealth in this country, but historically it's been a pretty reliable one. It's odd to me that the folks saying not everyone's cut out for college favor a system where it's mostly college-educated folks who can afford to send their kids to school. If someone charged me fifty bucks for a concert ticket and charged you five hundred for the same seats, would you still say we have equal access? If I have to work ten hours to pay for my ticket and you have to work fifty hours to pay for your ticket, would you argue we've both worked equally hard for it? And when the tickets are the same price, and one person's making fifty bucks while the other's making ten, do you really honestly believe they're both equally likely to make the purchase? And say what you want about government throwing money at universities, that's exactly what they were doing when you were in school. You're the proof that system works.

It has little to do with the federal government and, again, that's because we decided we didn't want to fund universities through state taxes. If the Feds are providing the bulk of the education dollars (as is the case at many universities), I don't see why the Feds shouldn't set the education standards. If the states were interested, they ought to make education a priority. Money talks. If your kid's an anesthesiologist they should be offered high fives or into six figures as a starting salary. Those folks are gonna pay off their student loans. Same with an accountant- at 50K/year (for a single person) you ought to be able to pay off student loans. My concern isn't whether relatively wealthy people will be able to pay off loans- they probably will; they're relatively wealthy. My concern is for the folks who are going into teaching, science, math- things that don't pay six figures. Under your system, how do they pay for college? And, most importantly.... Why weren't you guys asking these questions when YOU were in college?

....because tuition is offsetting losses from the state legislature. If you want college tuition to be what it was when you were in school, I'm encouraging you in the strongest possible terms to notify your state legislator of that fact. If you're expecting the same level of education given drastically fewer resources...why? Why should these students not have the same access to education which you had?

You and your wife did it with no financial aid. Your kid's doing it above minimum wage, with parental assistance, and scholarships. You're making the distinction. You may not want to acknowledge it, but I know you know you get it. Here's a neat fact: we don't all get that luxury. Some of us have to work on the family farm, exempt from minimum wage laws, to make ends meet. I baled hay, shucked corn, canned vegetables, hunted, foraged, butchered chickens and pigs...all for less than minimum wage. We don't all get that luxury. Why should cost be a barrier for them?

I absolutely agree. I dreaded teaching student athletes until I had to, and realized how much work they're putting in. It's not unusual for a student athlete to be spending 60-80 hours a week in training and practice, outside of courses and studying. Many times they're the first person in their family to be in college, and if they aren't above a 2.7, 3.0, whatever- it can all be pulled out from under them.

I don't know how else to say this- if you went to school before 2000, whatever you and your wife's tuition was, it was subsidized by the state. Today that subsidy is a fraction of what it was. Today's students aren't asking for more resources, but rather the same resources their parents had. If that's an unreasonable expectation, your generation shouldn't have set it as the benchmark. Why shouldn't today's students have the same advantages your parents conferred to you? I'm glad your kids can make college work on minimum wage, without assistance from parents or scholarships or student loans. Not everyone is that lucky. I worked through college, had scholarships, but a lot of the funding came from the death benefits of a loved one. One of my employees graduated with a 2.7 GPA because his parents were poor and he had to work a 40 hr/week on top of classes to afford a public university. On paper he shouldn't have his position, but because of his experience and his work ethic he's an exceptional employee. But you're drawing a relationship between intelligence and wealth that doesn't actually exist, our current executive covfefe that in spades. Taking out a 50K or 100K loan doesn't mean you're unintelligent or unmotivated, and every student I've met who's had to go that route has been absolutely terrified at the prospect of failure. All it means is you need to take out a 50K or a 100K loan in order to afford college. If anything it means you're extraordinarily motivated: you're pinning your entire future on graduating, and I've had students whose families have literally bet the farm in order to keep their kids in school. It shouldn't have to be that way. Ten times out of ten I'd rather hire an intelligent person from a poor background (like my current employee) than a dumb person from a wealthy background. When you price college beyond the means of poor folks, you lose that option. The American Dream is predicated on the idea that you can begin at a low station in life and work your way up, the current education system doesn't accomplish that. I fully, 100% agree not everyone is cut out for college. But everyone should have the opportunity to go to college. Ten times out of ten I'd rather have the roofer who can't cut it take a semester or two of classes, then the roofer who's a brilliant chemist miss out entirely. To me, the latter's the greater loss. To me the barrier shouldn't be the price tag, it should be merit- who's the smartest and who's worked the hardest. As an educational institution, to me universities should be merit-based, not wealth-based. But that'll be decided by society. And if we're gonna pick the latter over the former, we ought to be honest about it.

At least at Mizzou, sports revenue is typically higher than expenditures, or at least breaks even. That's not the case at lots of universities, which sometimes have to subsidize athletics programs to a staggering degree. Then again, a couple losing seasons can swing freshman enrollment pretty significantly. As long as students are deciding a school based on the football team, universities will keep making those athletic programs a priority.

Absolutely! No one's arguing with that. When the state met its financial obligations to fund higher education, you could pay tuition and expenses out of pocket. As the state has failed to meet its financial obligations to fund higher education, students have to rely on family members, scholarships, and student loans.

Sure, and if the student defaults they'll be paying indefinitely. We could use state taxes to offset tuition increases. Instead we send tax dollars to the Feds, who funnel a chunk into the Department of Education, who funnels some of it into student loans, charging you interest on a loan with the money you gave them. I'm just saying that instead of paying for it twice (taxes AND loan interest), pay once and be done with it. Again, it's been such a successful system it's how most folks paid for college outside the last twenty years.

No. Because if the state legislature cuts appropriations by 15%, administrators recoup that loss by increasing tuition. And the end of the day someon's gotta pay the piper, and if it isn't the state government it'll be the students. Of course most of those students have taken out loans, many of which are federally funded, meaning the money's coming out of taxpayer's pockets anyway. It's the same outcome, we've just created a byzantine, inefficient, expensive system because people are so repulsed at the idea of funding their public institutions. The answer to high college cost is doing what your parents did. And their parents did. Supporting universities through taxes. It worked so well, you were able to afford college. But as of right now and adjusted for inflation the UM system receives less money through state appropriations than it did in 1990- and the student population has doubled since then. If it were true that reduced funding improves higher education outcomes, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It isn't a matter of reining in costs, as a student today has half the allocated resources their parents did. If you think that's just a matter of better money management, you're welcome to donate half your income to charity while maintaining the same quality of life.

I mean, if parents are in the right refusing to send their kids to a school based on political ideology, why should students be forking over tuition dollars so idealogues they don't agree with get to come to campus? A lot of you guys are saying that in the interest of diversity and free speech other people's kids should be exposed to alternative (conservative) viewpoints, but that your kids need to be shielded from alternative (liberal) viewpoints. Why the double standard? Everyone's allowed an opinion- but if you can't argue or defend or support or substantiate that opinion, it isn't worth much. You may feel trout are superior to bass, but if you want the state to go on a prolonged smallmouth extermination initiative- you'll have to provide more evidence. There are lots of conservative individuals wiling to do do that. But that's the issue a lot of academics take with folks like Ann Coulter and Milo ... coming to campuses. If they wanted a dialogue, they'd be welcome. But at best they're interested in a captive audience to spout their views without critical thought or examination. At worst they just want to use the conflict as another tool to manipulate their fans. If they're uninterested in the one process a university's designed to convey to its students, what are they doing on campus? And to that point- why should a person like Ann Coulter, who's made a career of trashing millennials expect to be welcomed with oen arms to a university campus? You do have the right to free speech, but not speech without consequences. It isn't lost on anyone- students especially- that one party in the state legislature has been pretty consistent in its de-funding of higher education. If conservatives are feeling unwelcome on campuses, maybe it has less to do with black student protestors and more to do with the fact they've routinely thrown support behind the folks slashing university budgets.

Because they come from different genera and have different chromosome counts, mating brook and brown trout results and very low survival of eggs and young. Survival of browns and rainbows is typically 80-90%, surival of tiger trout is typically no more than 25%. That means you need more broodstock and more hatchery space to produce the same number of tiger trout as browns and rainbows. It means for every dollar spent, >50 cents is getting flushed down the toilet. That's why Pennsylvania discontinued stocking, it's why Wisconsin discontinued stocking, it's why states like Arizona and Wyoming only stock them occasionally and only in certain reservoirs, it's why the states which do stock them regularly are flush with federal matching funds from the sale of fishing licenses- they have money to burn. And in many places they don't even grow as fast as browns. So again- aside from the fact they're pretty, why should they be stocked? Cutthroat are also tough to produce in hatcheries- unlike browns and rainbows, they haven't been domesticated for decades. Biologists are still working out how to spawn and rear them. It's done in the west principally for restoration, with funds contributed from state agencies plus federal groups like Fish and Wildlife Service. Lahontans get real big in a couple Nevada lakes with unique ecological conditions in no way replicated by Taneycomo, throughout most of their range they barely reach ten inches. They're federally listed anyway, so no one's gonna give up eggs just so Ozarkers can do the grip-n-grin without having to leave home. As for the tag...again, why? I'm not interested in eating or mounting trout, so I'm not gonna spend $25 bucks when all I want is a picture. Meat anglers aren't gonna spring $25 on exotic species if they can creel browns and rainbows with just a basic license.