Al Agnew

I think I understand Chief's points, although I also pretty much agree with Eric. Climate and river conditions probably didn't change much in the Ozarks between the last ice age and the coming of European settlement. The lower sections of many Ozark streams are slow, have "always" been slow. They have also been warmer and more fertile. So, no matter whether it is the lower Meramec, Gasconade, or Big, or the lower Black or White, the lower sections of many streams have always been good spotted bass habitat. And, as I tried to point out in my dissertation on connections and barriers, the lower Meramec and Gasconade HAVE had connections of a sort to places where spotted bass live. So...if the spotted bass could have reached the lower Meramec sometime in the past since the last ice age, they probably would have about as quickly as they reached the streams of SW MO, and if they had reached the lower Meramec and Gasconade back then, they would have thrived there. There had to have been some sort of barrier to their spread into the northern Ozark streams, and I'm not the only one to suggest it was the extreme silt load of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, due to the geology of much of the land the upper Missouri drains. So...I think we have to assume that spotted bass have lived in the southern and southwestern Ozark streams since prehistoric times, and that they did NOT live in the northern Ozark streams until the 1940s at the earliest (and the 1980s for the Meramec and Gasconade). 25 to 65 years is a blink of time in the history of species. And there are certainly obvious as well as not so obvious human-caused reasons for their sudden spread into the northern Ozarks. Even Chief's viewpoint that it might be habitat degradation is a human-caused reason. So I think that you can consider the spotted bass of the southern Ozarks as native under any normal definition, and the spotted bass of the northern Ozarks as either an introduced species (apparently the case in the Osage river system) or an invasive species. Chief also apparently believes that smallmouth and spotted bass in these streams will "naturally" reach an equilibrium based upon the habitat available for each. Chief, I'm not sure yet of your point about otters, given that I still think it's an entirely different proposition when one species directly competes with another, instead of preying on the other. If otters reach equilibrium with smallmouth, it means otters and smallmouth both maintain viable populations. "Equilibrium" in the case of spots vs. smallies can and does mean plenty of spots and very few smallmouth in these streams. I will agree that eventually equilibrium might mean something like Shoal Creek in SW MO, where the spots and smallies coexist with significant numbers of each. But compared to the way things WERE on my home stream, Big River, that is no bargain. Which brings me to what I think Chief's main point might be...that spotted bass deserve the same protections as smallmouth, and why I think that any equilibrium which leaves the smallmouth population of the northern Ozark streams greatly reduced from what it was before spots arrived is a disaster. When MDC first started their Master Angler Awards program and started keeping records of how many MAA smallmouth came from each stream, the Meramec, Big, and Gasconade were the top three streams EVERY YEAR...until the spotted bass appeared in these streams. Before spotted bass, these streams were amazing big smallie producers. I knew a lot less about catching bigger smallies back then, but on the Meramec from 1977 to 1985, I considered the trip a poor one if I didn't catch at least one smallie over 18 inches. I can't remember all that many trips back then when I didn't at least have an encounter with a big smallmouth. On Big River, my home stream, it was much the same. These were not just average smallmouth streams, they were the BEST until spotted bass invaded. Now, they are mostly spotted bass, and the fact is that spotted bass simply don't grow to 18-20 inches in these streams. So a fishery that routinely produced fish of that size no longer does. It isn't a matter strictly of loving smallies more than spots, it's a matter of a fishery for bigger fish declining to the point where the chances of catching a true "trophy" are practically nil...with no improvement in numbers, either. I could take that a step further...I'm not familiar with a lot of the SW MO streams that harbor significant populations of both smallies and spots, but from reports here and elsewhere and my own limited experience, I don't know of ANY Ozark stream with good numbers of both species that produces a lot of BIG smallies. The St. Francis, the eastern Ozark stream that has thriving populations of both spotted bass and smallmouth, seldom produces smallies over 18 inches. It seems to me that in places where you routinely catch both species, something is limiting the size that smallies can attain or at least the numbers that can attain 18+ inches. Perhaps even in those streams, spotted bass are such good competitors that they relegate the smallies only to areas of the stream where feeding conditions are not as good. If a fish has unfettered access to every part of its home stretch of stream, maybe it can optimize feeding opportunities and grow bigger than if it is limited only to the faster water areas. That's just a guess. At any rate, I guess in the end Chief and I just have different viewpoints. Knowing what my rivers used to be like and what they are like now, watching the big smallie fishery decline to almost nothing over 250 miles of rivers within 25 years or so, yes, I hate spotted bass in these streams, and I will kill every one I legally can.

Yeah, you won't be able to wring any favorite creeks out of most of us, but some other suggestions on finding your own... There are several resources that are relatively inexpensive and will get you started on exploring creeks: The De Lorme Atlas for Missouri (and Arkansas if you want to cross the state line in your explorations)--This is a great book for finding possibilities on the map, and shows all the possible roads leading to them. Any creek that looks like it flows for 20 miles or more is probably big enough to hold fish. The Conservation Atlas of Missouri, put out by MDC--a bit more accurate on public roads, and shows MDC accesses, some of which are one wadeable creeks. "200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures", by Chuck Tryon. For some reason Chuck left out some of the SW MO streams, but his book covers all the James River tributaries and everything to the east. He gives every possible access on every possible smallmouth stream. But some of his "accesses" are problematical, and some may be posted. Use his book with some caution. The MDC float book will give you some accesses on upper portions of floatable streams, which may also be wadeable. Now...armed with these resources, take a day and go exploring, checking out every bridge and other possible access on every creek you can drive to during that day. If the water looks big enough to hold fish, it might be a potential hotspot. But keep in mind that public access on some of these streams is iffy at best. To be on the safe side, I only use accesses that have available places to park that look like they have been used, and that aren't posted against trespass. You can look for nearby residences and ask permission, but chances are that they can only give you permission to use whatever portion of the creek they own, which may be only a short section. I just start wading, keeping a low profile, staying within the stream banks, and for heaven's sake don't litter or do anything else that can possibly tick off a landowner! Wheatenheimer's right...the time for warm water species creek fishing is winding down fast. By mid-October most small creeks will not be very good fishing. But you can still explore and gather possibilities for next year!

Mostly two reasons...one, I hate having to carry around a tool to cut braid when my teeth suffice with mono! But, mainly, I'm so accustomed to the way my mono works with the baitcasters that I see no reason to use braid and learn the differences in the way it handles. I may eventually try braid on the baitcasters, but right now I'm perfectly happy with what I got.

I don't think they move far. Really I'm not talking about really high water that makes the river fast from bank to bank, just a 1-2 ft. rise. In that case they may move only to areas in the middle portion of their home pool, or along the off banks where it's normally slow and shallow. Or they may simply move behind obstructions along the same banks where they'd normally feed, or eddies alongside the bottom of the riffles.

Paddlefish often show up in the larger Ozark streams. There are quite a few in Current River. Black River below Clearwater Dam holds some. I wouldn't be TOO surprised if there are a few that run up the Gasconade.

Really muddy water, visibility less than a foot, is always tough. I agree with eric on what I'd try, but I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in it or anything else. Problem with muddy water is that it gives the fish almost unlimited possibilities on where they can be lying, yet you have to put the lure very close to them to get them to hit. So I always think I'm spending a lot of time fishing places where the fish aren't. Oddly, the biggest river smallmouth I ever caught in really high, muddy water was an 18 incher that I caught on a nightcrawler while fishing for catfish at the mouth of a feeder stream. The stream was backed up from a six foot rise on the river, and I was fishing the worms atop a gravel bar that was normally a foot out of the water in the slack water backed up into the feeder stream. I ended up catching several nice smallies that day, and no catfish!

Give me a one foot or maybe even a two foot rise and some murky but not muddy water on a stream that's normally clear, and I'm gonna be real happy. Such conditions often make the big fish lose their wariness and feed heavily. BUT, don't concentrate on the spots that you normally think are good in lower water. Higher, murkier water really moves the fish around. Fish the river as if it's a totally different stream, read where you think the fish would be if the present conditions were NORMAL. Look for them close to banks behind obstructions in places where the water is no deeper and the current is no stronger than where you'd be catching them under normal conditions. That may be along banks that you remember as being too slow and shallow to be any good in normal water. Fact is that high water gives the fish a lot more options on where to feed. I always start out with lures that are bulky and displace a lot of water--bigger spinnerbaits and fat, wide-wobbling crankbaits--and fish them fast, trying to cover a lot of water. Ideally, the fish will be hitting such lures and giving you a lesson in where they are that day. Then, if you want to slow down and really pound the places where the fish seem to be, do it with bigger, bulkier bottom-bumping lures like big jig and pigs. I learned this lesson when I was a teenager, by accident. I fished a certain section of stream for the first time when it was about two feet above normal and very murky, with visibility no more than 18 inches. And I caught a bunch of really nice smallmouth that day, by simply fishing where I thought the fish should be THEN, since I had no idea where they would be normally. I did so well that I went back to the same stretch two weeks later, when it was back down to normal and clear. I couldn't believe it. The places where I caught most of the fish before were so shallow that there was no way a fish could be there normally. Ever since then, I've approached streams in high water by ignoring where the fish would be in normal water and fishing them as if I'd never fished them before.

You're right that lots of guys like braid on baitcasters, but I don't. I use 8 pound McCoys Mean Green co-poly on all my baitcasters. I love braid on spinning tackle, however...won't use anything but braid on spinning. You'll soon find another lucky spinnerbait, but it's funny how some lures just seem to have charmed lives...I have individual lures that I have twice the confidence in than I do others of the same model.

Chief, I see what you're saying in relating spotted bass to otters. But I think there are a couple of differences. First, otters are a predator, preying on bass among other things. The relationship between otters and smallmouth, for instance, is different from the relationship between spotted bass and smallmouth. Otters, like any predator, cannot eat their whole prey base, or they starve. By reaching equilibrium with their prey base, otter numbers and the numbers of the prey are controlled, with optimum populations of both existing. Spotted bass, on the other hand, are a competitor, not a predator, of smallmouth. If they "win" the competition, they simply take over the water and the smallmouth disappear. Second, otters WERE native to the Ozarks. Having said all that, I agree that eventually an equilibrium will be reached. I suspect that over the lower halves of these streams, it mostly already has. Problem is, the equilibrium relegates the smallmouth to the margins. In lower Big River, smallmouths are now ONLY found in two or three small areas of fast water in 30 or more miles of river. The population ratio is at least 95% spotted bass, 5% smallmouths (excluding largemouth, of course). My observations in the middle Meramec, though not nearly as extensive as cwc's, points the same...spotted bass have become a little scarcer in the river above Sand Ford (Meramec Caverns) and in my even more limited observations, they seemed to have reached an equilibrium with smallies below Sand Ford...smallmouth are still there in significant numbers, though nothing like what they were before spotted bass. Maybe we're tilting at windmills here. Maybe there's really nothing we can do to alter the situation, and we just have to accept that we've lost most of Big River and Bourbeuse as premier smallmouth streams. Like I said before, we won't know until the situation with the removal of length limits and limit of 12 spots plays out. Personally, I don't think it will...but I think that complete protection of smallmouth coupled with no limit at all on spotted bass might enable the smallies to at least come back some on these streams. About the idea that somehow this is "natural", and that spotted bass may have moved into the southern Ozark and SW MO streams the same way, only earlier...I guess it depends upon what you think is "natural". We know what the original ranges--the ranges the different species had--were when scientists began defining the species. For smallmouth and spotted bass, we know where they lived before stocking began. We assume that they had the same ranges since the climate settled down after the last ice age. The melting and warming periods after ice ages are believed to be the times when freshwater aquatic species expand their ranges. At that time, the connections between watersheds are at their maximums, and the water temps are stabilizing to where the species can settle into habitat that suits them. Once the overall melting period was over and the river systems got into their present forms, the fish were pretty much stuck with where they lived. It's all a matter of connections and barriers. Obviously, a highland that separates two watersheds is an impassable barrier--the highland that separates the north-flowing streams in MO from the south-flowing streams is a good example. A less obvious barrier, but probably very significant as well, is a long stretch of water that is totally unsuitable habitat, such as what the Missouri River and the Mississippi between the Missouri and the Ohio was before the dams were built on the upper Missouri and started catching and holding a tremendous amount of silt that once came down that river. The third barrier we might consider is simply latitude and climate. Spotted bass seem to have never been able to take the colder winters north of a line going across southern Ohio, Indiana, and central Illinois, which would have put the northern Ozarks close to the northern edge of their possible range, but well within it climate-wise. Now...connections. The Ohio River, draining largely eastern and midwestern forestland and grassland before European settlement, was historically a fairly clear river that often flowed as much water as the combined Missouri and Mississippi above it. So it would have diluted the sediment in the Mississippi enough for the river between the Ohio and the mouth of the White River to be a connection from the Ohio Valley to the White River (and a connection for smallmouth, for that matter, although I suspect that the smallmouth used it earlier when it was still flowing colder meltwater from the northern glacial ice). Apparently, spotted bass were also able to use the Arkansas River connection to the Mississippi to move up it and eventually into the Neosho and Grand river systems, and thus the streams of SW MO. We know that smallies used that connection a LONG time ago, long enough to have evolved into a separate subspecies, the Neosho smallmouth. So...the streams of the southern Ozarks had the connections, and apparently the Missouri and the Mississippi above the Ohio was the barrier that kept spotted bass out of any stream whose waters eventually reached the Missouri or the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo. So how did the smallies get into those streams if spotted bass couldn't? Well, smallmouth tolerate colder water. They are native to the upper Mississippi and tributaries above the mouth of the Missouri. They probably utilized the Mississippi when it was still flowing many times its present size during the glacial melting period, when the water and climate was too cold for spotted bass to move out of their stronghold in the southeastern states. Records of smallmouth before the widespread stocking of Ozark waters in the late 1800s and early 1900s are scarce for the northern Ozark streams, and it's just possible that they WEREN'T native to the rivers flowing into the Missouri--the Gasconade and Osage river systems. It's believed that northern rock bass were not native to these streams, by the way, but were stocked in them early on. But it's also possible that glacial meltwater kept the Missouri sediment diluted enough for smallmouth to utilize it to expand their ranges during the melting period. At any rate, we know that spotted bass were native to the southern Ozarks and not to the northern Ozarks before humans started messing around with the ecology of the the Missouri and Mississippi and stocking them in some places. The only natural thing about their spread into the northern Ozarks was their own natural propensity to roam--we made it possible for them to follow that propensity into the northern Ozarks.

Yep, still picking at the degraded habitat scab, Chief... When I was talking about degraded habitat with otters, I was speaking entirely of small streams. Contrary to what some anglers have complained about, I have seen no real impact of otter predation on the larger streams. But on small creeks, the filling in of pools and recreational bulldozing have made the fish more susceptible to otters, especially in the winter. As for the Gasconade...I'm not familiar with the Gasconade below Jerome...having only fished it a few times many years ago. But I do know that spotted bass are very common in the lower river. The lower Gasconade, like the lower Meramec, was once a premier fishery for big smallmouth. I don't think it is anymore. Maybe somebody who fishes the river below Jerome can chime in here...I'm intending to fish the lower Gasconade to find out for myself. For whatever reason, I've found spotted bass to be pretty rare in the Gasconade above Jerome, as well as the Big Piney. Yes, you'll catch one occasionally, but in the trips I've made to the Gasconade between Hazelgreen and Jerome and in the Big Piney below Fort Leonard Wood in the last few years, I don't remember catching hardly any spots. I can't tell you why, since it would seem there is not much difference in habitat between the Gasconade and Meramec. I hope things stay that way. The trouble with spotted bass in many waters, even those in which they are native, is that they are sexually mature long before they reach the 12 inch length limit, and simply don't grow very big very fast. So a 12 inch limit, and especially a 15 inch limit like some of the reservoirs have, favors spotted bass.

It's like picking at a scab...you just can't resist. Biological surveys as well as fishing experiences have shown that on the stream stretches where spotted bass are not native but are in the process of invading, they compete very directly with smallmouth. It appears that it is very close to a one to one thing...the more spotted bass, the fewer smallmouth. In my own experience, total numbers of the fish I catch on average don't change much from year to year in those sections where the spotted bass are increasing rapidly, the only change is in the ratio of smallmouth to spots. I think that's important. Stream where spots are not native and never were there before. Spots replacing smallmouth so thoroughly that it seems that for every spotted bass that gets into that stretch, there is one less smallmouth. The fewer smallmouth, the fewer BIG smallmouth. And the spots don't grow as big on average. Result--basically the loss of 250 miles of what was once excellent water for BIG smallmouth in the Meramec River system alone, replaced by a fishery for mostly small spotted bass with the population of smallmouth over 18 inches probably 10% of what it once was. I simply can't stress this enough--the LOSS, within a 25 year period, of 250 miles of PREMIER big smallmouth fisheries in one river system. But...the real question is whether killing spotted bass is doing any good. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's simply too late, and we can never take out enough spots to make a difference and bring back some semblance of the smallmouth population that was once there. But one thing is for sure, if the spots AREN'T being taken out, the smallmouth fishery will only get worse. And we'll never know whether taking them out will help unless every angler who cares about the smallmouth kills spotted bass IN THESE STREAMS. Call it an experiment. Maries River, Tavern Creek, Moreau River, were among the first streams where spotted bass were not native that were invaded by spots. They've been in them long enough, and been protected equally with the smallmouth long enough, that they've probably reached an equilibrium with the smallies. Maybe that's the case in the streams of the Gasconade and Meramec systems, as well, or soon will be. The "experiment" of killing spotted bass to protect and enhance smallmouth populations is only going on in the Meramec system. In that system, the biologists WANT you to kill spotted bass. It's the only way they'll know whether the experiment works. So...I believe that we should kill all the spotted bass we legally can in the Meramec River system, if for no other reason than to cooperate with that experiment. If it is then shown to be an effective strategy for protecting smallmouth populations in such streams, then it should be extended to the other streams where spots were not native. In the streams where spotted bass ARE native, there is really little reason to advocate more harvest of spotted bass.

There are lots of tales of ghosts in the Irish Wilderness along the Eleven Point. Stands to reason that at least one of those ghosts decided to take up flyfishing.

I kinda go spot by spot. It's really easy on small wading creeks. You usually have pools separated by riffles. Every pool holds fish unless it's so small and shallow it's obvious there can't be any there. So if I fish a pool one way and don't catch anything, I fish the next pool with a different retrieve. On bigger, floatable streams, if I haven't gotten any action after a couple dozen casts, I try something different. If I'm on a familiar stretch of river where I KNOW all the spots that usually produce fish, and I don't get any action in one of those spots, then I immediately try something different. The hardest thing to do is experiment when you ARE catching fish. Sometimes I just go with the flow and keep doing what is working, but sometimes I'll deliberately try different retrieves then just to see if anything else will work, or work better. You also have to be alert to what the fish may be telling you. It's like one time when I was floating the river in early spring, and the water temp was only in the low 50s. I was using a jig and fishing slowly in the colder water, figuring the fish wouldn't be chasing stuff very much. The first two fish I caught were while I was burning the jig back to the canoe to make another cast after I'd fished it through the sweet spot. So I switched to a buzzbait and caught fish like crazy. So with WTD lures, maybe a fish hits while you're getting out a backlash. Or maybe one hits as you're reeling in quickly for the next cast. Or maybe one hits while the canoe is drifting toward the lure so fast that you aren't able to catch up the slack to play it fast. Such things might be telling you to speed up or slow down.

It's always a juggling act between divulging enough info to be helpful, and divulging too much and doing harm. I may not be the best stream smallie angler in MO (in fact, I KNOW I'm not), but I know enough to catch fish every time I go and catch big ones with some regularity, and my methods are really pretty simple, but have some subtle nuances that make a lot of difference. So...do I tell all my "secrets" and risk others putting too much pressure on the fish? That's very similar to what you were wrestling with on telling pretty much where you were fishing. The fact is that wading size streams ARE fragile fisheries (and don't get me started on the fact that you can LEGALLY kill six smallies a day on most of them). But on the other hand, there are a LOT of wading size streams in the Ozarks, and most of them furnish pretty decent fishing. I don't like to make it too easy for the casual angler (let alone the meat hog) to find them, but really it isn't difficult. Finding access might be more problematical, so I NEVER tell accesses on wading streams, and would like to see others keep the specific accesses out of reports, as well. But, Maries and Tavern are fairly well-known streams that are big enough to float at least part of the year and have been publicized before. And there are a lot of streams in a similar situation. So I wasn't too concerned about telling that you were fishing the Maries. Now if you wandered over to my part of the state and told about fishing my own secret little creeks, I'd probably have to kill you!

So I'm standing in the middle of the Yellowstone River this evening, catching whitefish after whitefish and thinking about this question after reading it this morning. And I'm thinking that I get the same sense of accomplishment--or lack of accomplishment--catching whitefish out of the Yellowstone as I do catching those dirty silver nubbly-finned soft-sided raw-nosed obvious hatchery trout around Tan Vat. And when I catch a nicely-colored pretty-finned rainbow from the upper Current that actually jumps more than a foot out of the water a couple of times and makes a real run or two instead of just twisting around on the surface like a channel cat before giving up, I just feel like I've caught something worthwhile. And when I caught the two 14 inch rainbows this afternoon amongst all the whitefish--and I knew immediately they were rainbows because there wasn't the throbbing weight on the line but instead when I set the hook the rod tip dipped so quickly I nearly lost my grip and then the fish came three feet out of the water--I felt like I'd REALLY caught something worthwhile. But...those rainbows, while certainly wild by any definition of the term, are not native to the Yellowstone, and the whitefish are. No trout is native to Missouri, but some were born in the stream, and a few were born of many previous generations that were born in the stream. And others were born in a hatchery but have lived in the river long enough to be adapted beautifully to their surroundings and to have lost all visible traces of their hatchery beginnings. It's all a continuum. From the fish that was released from the truck yesterday, to the fish whose ancestors have been living in the river for a hundred years, and everything in between. I don't think there's any definition that everybody would agree upon. I think that it's up to you to define "wild" and decide what value you place on the fish you catch. Here's a somewhat related question...does it disappoint you to catch fish that have obvious fresh hook scars around their mouths? Healed torn-off maxillaries? Sometimes it disappoints me...I guess I'd like to think I was the first one to catch that fish. And what about the biologists clipping fins? I once fished the Salmon River in Idaho for steelhead. All hatchery raised steelhead in the Salmon have had their adipose fin clipped off. If you catch a steelhead with an intact adipose fin, you know it's a wild fish. (And you must release it--you can keep one or two hatchery fish, or at least that's how it was when I fished it.) Now, the clipped fin fish otherwise looked just like the wild ones, and certainly fought just as hard. But I remember always being disappointed to see that clipped fin.

My "fast" with WTDs is about two twitches per second, maybe at times a little faster yet. This is with Sammys from the 85 to the 115. With the 100 and 115, each twitch makes the lure move about 1.5 body lengths. With the 85 (modified by taking the big center weight out and re-sealing the body), it moves about two body lengths. I'll slow it down a little bit, but seldom as slow as one twitch per second. I'll also experiment with an erratic cadence with occasional SHORT pauses along with speeding it up and slowing it down. And also, after working it through the zone where I think the fish should be, I'll start reeling it much faster while still twitching it, which will make it zig zag while moving fast, almost like a surface crankbait. There are lots of things you can do with them in special situations, such as hard twitch-soft twitch-hard twitch-soft twitch, which makes it zig farther than it zags, and so you can make it veer toward cover or even veer under an overhanging limb. But I can't seem to master that with my two twitch per second retrieve speed, so I have to slow it down to get it to veer. Kinda like the default retrieve is simple muscle memory, but to do the hard-soft twitch I have to think about it.

I'm guessing that ag run-off is probably a greater problem on the Bourbeuse than on most other Ozark streams. There is simply more farm land in the watershed than in much of the Ozarks. However, a lot of streams in SW MO and NW AR have greater problems with factory poultry farm pollution. "Non-point source" pollution is the least addressed water pollution problem in general, because it isn't as easy to regulate as something coming out of a pipe. Whether it be simple siltation problems from erosion of farmland, pesticides and herbicides, spreading sewage treatment residue of farmland (both human residue and the residue from factory farms), or run-off from heavily pastured lands, there's no doubt that it's a problem and a growing one. And it is one that isn't really being addressed at anywhere near the levels it deserves.

Crawfly, it depends upon one or two factors. Are they native to the watershed? And is something happening that is making them increase at the expense of other bass species? In MO, they are a big problem ONLY in the Meramec and Gasconade river systems, where they were NOT native. Other stream stretches further south have seen an increase in their population mainly because of the effects of dams on these streams--as I said, in the case of lower Black River because of dam releases off the top of Clearwater Lake, which made the river below warmer and murkier. And in the case of Bryant Creek and the James River, continual movement upstream out of robust populations in Norfork and Table Rock Lake. Other than that, spotted bass are no problem at all in the streams where they are native. In some other parts of the country, it's likely that habitat changes in streams that once had spotted bass only toward their lower ends have allowed them to move into what once was mainly smallmouth water--not a good thing. And maybe in a case or two, removal of low-head dams might have allowed them to spread further upstream than they had been before. But for the most part, if they were native to a river system, they and the smallies have evolved together and have their own ecological niches, or co-exist quite well. So it's a case by case deal. If for some reason the spot population suddenly explodes and the smallmouth population drops, you know something is wrong. But when both populations are stable, even in the same waters, then there is probably nothing to be concerned about. Don't get me wrong. I think spotted bass are a valuable game fish in the places where they are native. I am just as protective of the spotted bass in the St. Francis River as I am the smallies and largemouth. But dang it, they don't belong in the Meramec and Big River, and I will not release one there that I can legally keep, period.

When things start getting personal, just back off. I will always speak up when I think I'm right about the facts of an ISSUE. But I try to keep in mind that you don't win arguments by attacking the "opponent" personally...that just makes them get their back up. I try to use facts and logic to make my points. The worst thing that happens to websites like this is when they become sniping galleries between personalities. Trust me, this site is FAR, FAR from being as bad as some I've seen. Go to the "bicker and banter" section of Paddling.net. Some really substantive issues are discussed there, but all to often the discussions quickly deteriorate into nasty, pointless attacks on each other by about a dozen or so of the same posters. Just stop and think before you post...are you making a point about the issue, or talking about the person?

Thanks, Hank...I gotta admit I haven't been on the upper Bourbeuse in the last few years, so I was going by what others were telling me that the spots were not dominant above Noser yet. Unless something very unexpected happens, though, they WILL become the dominant species throughout the entire Bourbeuse, given the type of habitat it is. As for the Meramec, yes, you will catch spotted bass farther upstream, especially in years with a lot of high water. Spotted bass REALLY move around in high water. But the thing that keeps me hopeful is that they have been unable to become dominant above Meramec State Park even though they've had the opportunity for a long time. As fast as you and I have both seen them explode in Big River and the Bourbeuse, it would appear that if the upper Meramec was suitable habitat they would have done the same there. Chief, I think we aren't much in disagreement about PRESENT habitat changes. The thing that's really starting to hurt the rivers now is simply the greatly increased development in the watersheds. I fear for the future of all the Ozark streams. But my point with habitat is that until the last couple of decades the situation had been improving on many stretches, not deteriorating. Big River is kind of a special case...it was getting better, but "better" is a relative term when you consider where it was to begin with. The Bourbeuse is almost the opposite--really good conditions on it when a lot of other streams were in bad shape, but probably now starting to deteriorate with development. Right now Mike Reed, the biologist for upper Big River, and others in MDC are working on a serious problem on the river where the Park Hills sewage treatment plant dumps into Flat River Creek. Ever since sewage treatment plants were first put in the watershed, every summer the bottom of the river becomes covered with mats of algae which then break loose, float to the surface, and drift downriver until something stops them. The algae is sickly blackish green and it stinks just like a sewage lagoon. This year it is the worst I've ever seen it. In many places between Flat River Creek and St. Francois State Park, the river surface is almost completely covered with this gunk, and it piles up against logs into mats several feet across and up to 6 inches thick. I can't imagine anybody would want to swim in the river at St. Francois Park, which is usually a pretty popular park. MO DNR supposedly tested the water coming out of the treatment plant, and says it is within acceptable limits. There is a possibility that there is something in the water chemistry on Big River, given the ongoing contamination from lead mine waste, that is combining with the nutrients coming out of the sewage plant to make this algae thrive. Stay tuned.

No spots. Up that far, and that close to the cold water from Maramec Spring, spots don't do well. I've caught a couple up there, but that was probably 10 years ago when the local bass club was releasing tournament caught fish willy-nilly and inadvertently putting spotted bass wherever they had their weigh-in, even if the fish were caught 100 miles downstream. That section of the Meramec was one of the first three SMAs. Back then they weren't sure the concept would go over with anglers. I've been told off the record that the ONLY reason it was chosen was because it was just below the trout management area, and they hoped that anglers in the region would already be accustomed to the trout management concept and would be less likely to oppose special smallmouth management restrictions in an adjoining section. Now, there is a built in constituency that might be opposed to downstream management areas--the tournament anglers. They might not want restrictions limiting the number of smallies they could weigh in. There may be biological reasons why the lower Meramec AND the other stream sections across southern Missouri that are big enough for lots of jetboat traffic and tournaments are unsuitable for special management--but it is an interesting coincidence....the closest thing we have to a larger river section that has special management is the Gasconade management area. The lure I was using today is a wooden one I make myself, about the size of a Super Spook Jr., but weighted so that it sinks slowly. It also is shaped a bit differently, with a bulbous head section, a somewhat narrower "neck" about a third of the way back, and then wider again, with a feathered rear treble. It walks the dog underwater, usually running about 6-12 inches deep if you're working it fairly quickly. I didn't shape it like a Sammy because I simply turned it out on a lathe, and making it "Spook-like" with a narrower neck was a lot easier than shaping it more like a Sammy. I also made a horizontal stabilizer fin at the rear (which is what Rapala did with the Subwalk), which keeps it walking horizontally and not zig-zagging up and down. I've since made some without the neck and a little smaller yet. They are tricky to make because the mass and placement of the weight is critical to getting them to walk well...about half the ones I've made don't work very well.

Chief, yes, Big River IS the most impaired river in the Ozarks. BUT, I'm pretty sure you didn't see me say anywhere that the degradation of Big River is a recent thing. The lead mines and barite mines that have caused most of the problems on Big River were in full swing in the early part of the 20th Century. The complex of municipalities in the Old Lead Belt on the upper River have been dumping sewage into the river for longer than that, and didn't get ANY sewage treatment plants until the Clean Water Act made them do it...Desloge and Flat River (Now Park Hills) built their first sewage lagoons around 1969, and the water coming from them then was a putrid green and stank immensely...but it had to be better than what was happening before that. It was about then that water quality in Big River began to improve. The mine waste problem also started to improve after major disasters in the mid-70s caused something to be done about unsafe barite settling pond dams and lead tailings pond dams. The river's water supply, which had been depressed somewhat when the mines shut down for good in the 1960s and ground water was no longer pumped out of the mines into the river to keep them dry enough to operate, came back up once the mines completely filled with water and the excess began to emerge both in old exploratory boreholes and in the former springs. And as I said before, row-cropping, once very common in the bottoms along Big River, was being phased out by then as well, replaced by pasture and hay production. Those are facts, not my opinion. The facts are that Big River was in much better shape by the time spotted bass began to invade it from the lower end than they had been before. Since that time, the biggest changes on Big River have been good--the lead mine tailings areas were made into Federal Superfund sites (and the last one of the seven major areas is approaching final clean-up right now), and bad--more development in the upper watershed. The fact also is, and you'll get this answer from MDC if they wish to be honest, they DO NOT have really good baseline data for the health of the riparian corridors along these streams, or the water quality, before they began to really take Ozark stream resources seriously in the 1960s and 70s. They simply didn't have either the resources nor the will to pay close attention to the streams before then, concentrating their efforts much more on the big reservoirs. That's their biggest problem not only with such things as spotted bass encroachment, but in the possible damage caused by jetboats on the major rivers--they really don't have the data to show them what the rivers were like before jetboat use exploded...not in any real quantifiable way. The only early study MDC ever did on an Ozark stream before Fleener's study of smallmouth on Courtois Creek in the 1960s was an extensive study of Black River (where spotted bass were native) back in the 1940s. I'd venture to say that NOBODY within MDC at present has first-hand knowledge of what Big River was like prior to about 1970, and maybe much later. The biologists who have been responsible for Big River are younger than I am and didn't grow up anywhere near the river. What they KNOW is when spotted bass first began showing up in their samplings and creel surveys. And what I know is when I started catching spotted bass. While spots were common in the Osage river system prior to 1950, and invaded the Moreau River just upstream from the mouth of the Osage by 1950, there is no record of spotted bass in the Gasconade prior to 1974 (and chances are that Gasconade River spotted bass came from MDC stockings in the Loutre River). A single specimen was found at the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi in 1969, and several specimens were also taken at the mouth of Isle du Bois Creek, downstream on the Mississippi below the Meramec, in 1969. But there is no official record of spotted bass in the Meramec prior to 1975. Meanwhile, my own experiences in the eastern Ozarks might be a pretty good document of spotted bass spread into the Meramec and tributaries. I've fished all the creeks flowing into the Mississippi south of the Meramec since the early 1970s, as well as the Meramec and tribs. In 1974, spotted bass were common in lower Apple Creek below Appleton Mill dam, non-existent above the dam--I was going to college in Cape and fished Apple Creek a lot in 1974-76. Apple Creek is the FIRST good-sized creek that spotted bass would come to as they moved up the Mississippi from the Diversion Channel. At that same time, I was also fishing Saline Creek, including the lower end (it was a decent place to fish for walleye, which I was really into at that time.) Saline Creek is the next stream that spotted bass would come to as they moved up the Mississippi. There were no spotted bass in Saline Creek (at least I never caught any), until a few years later. Next creek up the river--Establishment Creek. There were spotted bass in it a couple years after they first appeared in Saline Creek. Joachim and Plattin Creek were next. Isle du Bois Creek, where specimens were collected at the mouth in 1969, is between Establishment Creek and Joachim Creek, but it is a tiny creek that is unsuitable for spotted bass--chances are that those fish, collected only once, were strays from either very early penetrations up the Mississippi or down from the Missouri. So, next stop for spotted bass--the Meramec...and the first spotted bass showed up there in the early 1980s. That's why I think my theory is correct. But the main point is that spotted bass were able to get to these streams in an "unnatural" way...they weren't directly stocked, but humans gave them a pathway one way or another. And they invaded from the lower ends, which were ALWAYS good spotted bass habitat--witness where spots are found in the Ozark streams where they are native...mostly in the slower, murkier lower stretches. Once they got to the lower ends, where they liked it and thrived, they continued moving upstream. Habitat CHANGES had nothing to do with it. Had they been able to reach the Meramec by entirely natural means, they would have been in the lower 30 miles or so since the last ice age. And once they were there in the lower end, habitat changes had nothing to do with it either, because their invasion was simply too fast. In a period of less than 25 years, they were able to not only invade but become the dominant or nearly dominant bass species in 100 miles of the Meramec, 55 miles of the Bourbeuse, and 100 miles of Big River. And all that mileage includes a lot of healthy smallie habitat along with whatever degraded stretches there are. In fact, the only things that stopped them were the mill dams, that formed a barrier to their upstream movement. Guths Mill on the lower Bourbeuse held them back for a period of several years, and Noser Mill is still apparently slowing their spread into the river above it. Four mill dams held them out of the middle and upper portions of Big River for a number of years. It appears that the Meramec above Meramec State Park may be habitat that is not enough to their liking, because it has been at least 10 years since they became common below the park, but they are still reasonably scarce upstream. So yeah, I'm guessing about some things...but I think they are well-educated guesses with a lot of evidence to back them up. And in the end, whether or not land use practices are improved, whether or not habitat degradation is stopped, simple geology will to a large extent determine the future of spotted bass and smallmouth in these rivers. The biologists will tell you that gradient is one of the biggest limiting factors in spotted bass habitat. They can live in pretty nice smallmouth water, but they just don't do well where the rivers are really fast. Kevin Meneau and Mike Reed, MDC biologists, have both said that a gradient of about 3.5 to 4 feet per mile is the limit of good spotted bass habitat, greater than that and they don't do well (with some exceptions in the streams where they are native, most notably the St. Francis River). Big River's gradient is less than 4 feet per mile until you get above Leadwood. The ENTIRE Bourbeuse is less than 4 feet per mile. The Meramec is less than 4 feet per mile below Steelville. And only the Meramec is heavily spring fed enough to make it possibly too cool for spotted bass, which is probably why they haven't thrived above Meramec State Park. No amount of habitat quality will change those characteristics.

I don't usually fish the Smallmouth Management Area on the Meramec. I think that other stretches of the river actually have more potential for big fish. But I hadn't fished the SMA for several years, so my wife Mary and I floated it today, from Riverview Access to Birds Nest. Wonderful weather, warm but not sweltering, nice breeze but not enough to make paddling difficult, some of the trees beginning to turn color a bit, followed an eagle downstream for more than a mile, saw hundreds and hundreds of turtles of several different species. The river had gotten a slight rise from rain the day before, and was just about perfect for the upper Meramec, visibility about 4 feet and that slightly milky green color. We put in just ahead of a couple in another private canoe, and there was one raft with several people in it in sight downstream. But neither group was fishing much, and both soon went out of sight ahead of us. Near Hwy. 19 we caught up with two rental canoes of non-anglers. That was it for people. I immediately started catching some fish, but nothing much over 12 inches, and more largemouth than smallmouth. I was using my homemade crankbait to start, but soon switched to another home made bait, the sinking walk-the-dog lure that I modeled after the Rapala Subwalk. I also was casting my homemade spinnerbait in faster water areas...the Subwalk doesn't work well in strong current. Everything was catching a fish now and then. We came to a long stretch of fairly shallow, moving water with a solid rock bottom, with several riffles and one drop that could almost be called a rapid. The small smallies were scattered throughout this stretch, and at one good spot I caught a 15 incher. But it was looking like the big fish weren't coming out to play today. We were approaching a riffle, and there was a nice pocket around a log on the off bank (the other bank was rocky). The current swung a bit into the log. I didn't make the cast until we were well past the spot, because that was the only angle that would allow a good cast. I was twisted around in the back of the canoe trying to play the Subwalk (I'm going to have to come up with a name for my lure, since the only real resemblance to a Subwalk is in the way you fish it...hey, I think I'll call it the "Sinking Swinger".) Suddenly there was a huge swirl. I set the hooks and felt a heavy fish. I was sure, from the great bulging wake as the fish took the lure, that it was a really big one, though in that spot I figured it was a largemouth. It tangled me in a small limb, but came loose. Mary had the camera ready. And then I got it to where we could see it. Largemouth alright, but not as big as I would have guessed. Still, it was a nice fish of around 18 inches: Just about the Hwy. 19 bridge, another real nice largemouth inhaled my crankbait. It was about 17 inches. Still no big smallies, though. Finally, in a shallow, rocky run, I happened to look up ahead and saw a wake from what appeared to be some kind of fairly big fish, in water that looked to be no more than 18 inches deep. I couldn't see the fish, but thought just maybe it would be a bass in that spot. I made a long cast with the Sinking Swinger and sure enough, this is what the fish was! It was 19 inches. A fish like that always makes the trip a good one.

Is it evolution? In a word...NO. The spotted bass got there entirely because of human interference. There are three ways this could have happened, and it would take a very extensive genetic study to have a real chance of finding out exactly where the spots came from. But, fact is that before human interference, in order for a spotted bass to reach the Meramec river system, EVEN though they are native to the St. Francis River which has its headwaters just across some low ridges from the headwaters of Big River, that spot would have had to come from where the St. Francis and Castor Rivers flowed into the Mississippi halfway down the state of Arkansas, traveled up the Mississippie all the way to south St. Louis, and entered the Meramec. Due to the turbidity of the Mississippi below the mouth of the Missouri, it simply wasn't the kind of water that spotted bass would have moved up that far. So how did they get there? As I've written before, there are three main possibilities. Somebody at some point dumped some spotted bass into Lake of the Ozarks soon after it was built, and they thrived in that lake and in the lower Osage. They could have moved down the Osage to the Missouri, down the Missouri to the Mississippi, down the Mississippi to the Meramec, and up the Meramec. MDC actually stocked them in the Loutre River, which enters the Missouri a little downstream of the Gasconade from the north, which would have been a shorter path down the Missouri. Or, my theory as I have written before--the Diversion Channel was built in the early 1900s, diverting the Castor River to the Mississippi just south of Cape Girardeau, shortening the path for spots UP the Mississippi by two thirds. The Clean Water Act cleaned up the Mississippi below St. Louis to make it more hospitable to spotted bass travel. And reservoirs up in the Dakotas on the Missouri made that river, and thus the Mississippi below it, much less turbid than it had always been before. NOW the spots had a clear and short path upstream to the Meramec. Like I've said, it's ironic that a GOOD thing--cleaning up the Mississippi, a major construction project that made the Bootheel of MO farmable, and dams a thousand miles away, may have combined to give spotted bass an opportunity to colonize new territory that they had never been able to do before. Once they got to the Meramec, THEN it was partly evolution that allowed them to thrive. Absent spotted bass competition, smallies were perfectly well-adapted to the Meramec and its tributaries. But once the spotted bass got there by human interference, they WERE the species that had a competitive advantage. Evolution didn't put them there, but now it's evolution that will decide how they end up co-existing with smallmouth. "Prime" smallmouth habitat doesn't have to be extremely fast and clear. Smallies can live in murky, slow water, and actually do better in such water due to the fertility and abundance of smallie food. Spotted bass, unfortunately, thrive in such waters, and are really just a little bit BETTER adapted to them. Spotted bass are only at a competitive disadvantage in waters that are very clear, cool, and fast. Fact is that such waters are really not "prime" smallmouth habitat. They are too infertile. But smallmouth are able to do well in such waters, while spots can't. So...what we think of as prime smallmouth habitat in the south-flowing streams of the Missouri Ozarks is actually only decent habitat...but the smallies have it pretty much to themselves because the spots can't do well in it. If spotted bass didn't exist, the best fishing for big smallmouth would probably be in some of the places where spots dominate now.

The float from Laubinger to Devils Back Campground just above Noser Mill was the biggest thing I liked about my Oscoda solo canoe, which is a fast, straight-tracking little canoe. I'd do that float (14 miles) in a day, paddling through all the slow pools and ONLY fishing hard around the riffles and moving water. It was a long day of paddling, but the fishing used to be great. But that canoe made it a lot easier.