Al Agnew

I've had some correspondence with Larry and we keep trying to get together for a fishing trip. Other than that, I have no real way of judging the merits of his beefs against MDC. I don't really know what to think about what he's trying to do. On the one hand, I agree that it's desirable to hold MDC's feet to the fire. On the other hand, there are a lot of people in the Ozarks who simply don't like authority of any kind and look for any way they can to throw a monkey wrench in the works. If Larry has the facts to back up his assertions, then more power to him, but if this group is going to be nothing but a gripe-fest, then it'll do more harm than good.

Guys, there's more to this story than just, "Ugh. Otters bad." I know of a lot of streams that have thriving otter populations and also have thriving game fish populations. Some of them are even pretty small creeks. There's no doubt that otters CAN be too efficient as a predator of game fish, especially for warm water gamefish on small, confined creeks in the wintertime, and probably on cold water fish like trout if they get too sluggish in hot weather. But in my experience they are not universally wiping out fish populations on Ozark streams. I have fished a couple of streams where otters were supposedly a huge problem, and found very few fish. BUT...one of the otter's main foods other than fish are crayfish, and both these creeks had MORE crayfish, right out in the open crawling along on the bottom, than I'd ever seen before...which means that, yep, the gamefish weren't there to eat them, but neither were any other predators...like otters. Maybe the otters wiped out the game fish and moved on, I don't know. Funny how on one stream where I encountered this, I also encountered several other anglers who said they used to take a limit of smallmouth out of this creek every weekend all summer long...hmmm. All I do know is that otters can't be the only culprit when it comes to declining fish populations. And on a stream like the upper Current River...seems to me like the fishing is just fine there, even with the obvious presence of otters. I'm willing to share the fish with the otters as long as the fishing stays good. Otters have now been common on Ozark streams for more than a decade. I suspect that they are probably reaching some kind of equilibrium with their food supply. Whenever you introduce what is, in effect, a new species, it tends to over-exploit its habitat, but eventually the population of both predator and prey stabilizes. I hope that's what will happen with otters. I suspect we'll always have localized problems on small streams with poor habitat, where the fish are squeezed into limited areas, but I'm no longer sure we have an overall otter problem...except around the fish hatcheries and in small ponds and creeks.

I drove down and visited with Phil for a short while, then went up to the dam and fished until close to dark. Lots of people, lots of small fish being caught. I caught some, nothing notable size-wise. I wasn't catching fish as regularly as some of the people I saw...must not have been using the perfect fly for the day! Beautiful day, though.

I posted this in the Taneycomo board but also thought I'd post it here... My wife has to be in Springfield tomorrow (Saturday) and wants me to drive down there with her (a four hour drive), but I don't have to stick around during the day. Want to go somewhere and fish. I've never fished at Taneycomo, so was thinking of going there. I know about the trout tournament so I assume Phil and company will be very busy. Anybody else on here going to be fishing up by the dam and not in the tournament? Any suggestions or comments? Any place else I might consider? Where would you go if you had a short day, waders, and a fly rod?

My wife has to be in Springfield tomorrow (Saturday) and wants me to drive there with her (it's a 4 hour drive). But I don't have to be there with once we get there, so I was thinking of going on down and fishing Taneycomo during the day. I've never fished Taney. Since I'll be wading I assume that the place to fish is up by the dam. I know about the trout tournament so I assume Phil and company will be busy... Anybody else on here going to be fishing there? Any suggestions? I'm also posting this on the general fishing board...any other places reasonably close to Springfield where I might go for the day?

Yep, what Gavin said. A double blade is very nice for paddling upstream, but I never use one when I'm doing a downstream float trip. The problems with double blades is that it isn't as easy to do the minor course and positioning corrections you need to make while fishing, and they don't do well when floating small streams where you'll encounter narrow, brushy riffles with overhanging trees. But if I'm putting in and paddling upstream, I always carry a double blade.

Hmm, "lots of fish"...forget the trout water, Ozark river trout are not easy enough for the novice to catch a bunch of them and the trout sections aren't fertile enough to have a lot of sunfish and other game fish. Forget any stream that's large enough for lots of jetboat use, because they get pounded so hard that the fish in them are a bit more sophisticated and you won't catch quite as many...even sunfish. Not that they can't be good fishing, but just not as good as the smaller but floatable streams if you are looking for pure numbers of fish. For pure grab bag fishing...lots of fish of a lot of different species...you need to fish streams that are not as popular with the party canoe crowd. If you are dependent upon canoe rental people for canoes or shuttles, look for streams that have just a few canoe rentals. I don't know how far you want to travel and where you live, so I'll give a few ideas in different parts of the Ozarks. The Bourbeuse is a great option. So is the upper Gasconade and the Osage Fork. The James. Flat Creek. Beaver Creek. Upper Eleven Point, above the trout water. The St. Francis. Castor River. But if you can go during the week, some of the popular streams can also be very good--Meramec above Steelville. Huzzah and Courtois. Upper Big Piney. Big Sugar. Current River between Round Spring and Powdermill. Upper Black River. Want a novice to catch lots of fish of all kinds? As long as they can cast a light spinning rod okay, just tie on the venerable Beetle Spin and tell them to cast it out and reel it in fairly slow. It'll catch about anything.

Yeah, Chief, those Chuck Taylors are still about as good as anything I've ever used! However, here's my perfect pair of wet wading shoes...I just wish somebody would make them: Basic shoe would be something made out of the same stuff that Crocs are made of, a fairly soft rubbery plastic that's impervious to water. I want the things to dry just as fast as you get them out of the water. Put a bit thicker padding in the insole, say some closed cell foam. Put big drain holes all over in them like Crocs, but then cover the drain holes with a fine mesh so gravel can't enter through them. Bring the shoes up to ankle height and have a buckle tightening system around the ankles to give you some ankle support. Put a thin neoprene ring around the tops to keep the gravel out. Make the soles that sticky rubber stuff on the outsides with a felt insert in the middle of the soles. They'd probably cost a bunch with all those features, but I think they'd be perfect.

Yeah, Larry's book is great, and one of the chapters is taken in part from another book that would be of great interest to you if you don't have it. It's "Some Recollections of an Ozarks Float Trip Guide", written in the 1990s by Ted Sare, who was a guide for Jim Owen in the 1940s. Ted passed away a few years later, but according to Larry's book copyrighted in 2004, the book was still available from Ted's wife Vernetta. Larry gives her address as Vernetta Sare, 3027 W. Farm Rd. 38, Willard, MO 65781, and says to send a check or money order for $10 plus $2 for postage. Don't know whether this is still valid or not. I've been meaning to write her and get a copy if possible. If anybody knows anything about her and the book, let me know. I'm also very interested in the old time river guides and the earlier days of fishing on the Ozark streams. It's a bittersweet experience to look at old photos of the White River. I can never view them without great sadness for what was lost, not only the White but the lower James and Kings, and the North Fork. But the White was the greatest of Ozark smallmouth rivers, and one of my greatest regrets is that I was born too late to see and experience it. I'd trade Table Rock and Beaver and Bull Shoals for the White the way it was any day.

According to the range map in the book "The Fishes of Missouri", they are not native to the area around KC. The closest streams where the map shows them to be found is the Lamine River and all its tributaries in the Sedalia area. However, they are very common in those streams, so just about any creek you come upon to the south and east of Sedalia should be full of them. Their range in MO coincides exactly with the boundaries of the Ozarks--they live in clear, sand or gravel bottomed streams. However, oddly enough they are also common in the Southeast MO bootheel. I agree that they are one of the prettiest freshwater fish. I've got several in my aquarium right now that have been thriving for more than a year, and are now adult size (they were only 2 inches or so when I put them in). A couple are males and they are very colorful. They do very well in aquariums and eat tropical fish flakes readily, but sometimes they get really aggressive with other fish in the aquarium. Mine have been coexisting quite well with the bluegill that are sharing the aquarium with them, but they ate the last couple of Ozark minnows and redbelly dace I put in. I'm going to have to remove them if I want to keep some of the smaller minnows anymore. My friend Bob Todd recently furnished me with three pirate perch he trapped in a small creek near Piedmont. One of them died, but the other two are doing well. They are interesting fish and of limited distribution in MO...these were the first I'd ever seen. They seem to be very nocturnal, only coming out when it's dark and all the lights are off. Otherwise they hide under the rocks. The longears and bluegill don't seem to bother them.

My brother in law told me tonight that a guy he knows had taken photos of three cougars with a trail cam around Terre du Lac in St. Francois County. I asked him how well he knew the guy and he said he'd never known him to lie. Said he had a copy of one of the photos. We had been out to eat, and when we got back to my BIL's house he dug the pic out of his truck. Sure enough, same photo as one of those above. Now he knows that guy does lie. With the internet and Photoshop, you really can't believe much of anything you see in a photo these days.

What surprises me is that more people don't go to over-the-shoulder packs (or...why there aren't more over-the-shoulder packs). I don't like waist or fanny packs because I often wade in water deep enough to get the pack wet if it's around my waist. I don't like chest packs because I don't like something sticking out in front of me all the time. I still use a vest most of the time, but have worn fanny packs as over the shoulder packs quite a bit when wet-wading in hot weather, and I have a William Joseph over-the-shoulder pack that I'm trying to get used to...it's a little too big for my liking. What I think I'd like the best would be a nice over the shoulder pack that is compact, and has really good padding designed for over the shoulder use on the strap. The beauty of such a pack is that you can wear it high on your back and out of any danger of getting wet, and then just grab the strap in front and pull and the pack slides around your side under your arm to the front where you can get stuff out of it. Or you can wear it on your side where the gadgets attached to it are within instant reach, but slide it up to your upper back whenever you get into deeper water. Seems like I'm always trying to come up with better ways of doing things when it comes to fishing, stuff that isn't available commercially. Like the perfect pair of wet-wading shoes, or the best tackle carrying system for canoes. But the tackle companies aren't asking my opinion!

Guess I'll weigh in on this... There is no perfect solo craft for floating and fishing Ozark streams. If you want stability, the toon rules. If you want gear capacity, a fairly large solo canoe rules. If you want pure maneuverability and ease of paddling for the beginner, a kayak rules. But...all have their drawbacks and weaknesses. Toon weaknesses have already been noted above. Wind really bothers them. They don't do real well on smaller, bony creeks. They don't carry a whole lot of stuff. It's no fun putting them together and blowing them up. Kayaks are simply horrible if you're a serious bass angler who carries several rods, lots of tackle, and plenty of beverages. A GOOD solo canoe does everything a kayak does, and does most of it better. But if you want to stand to fish, you ain't gonna do it in a decent solo canoe. If you want a canoe that allows you to stand comfortably, you can get a nice wide flat-bottomed one, but it'll be a barge to paddle. I think that the bottom line is, you can make any of these craft work for you, and once you get used to it you'll probably be pretty happy with it...until you happen to get into something better. Here's my opinion on solo canoes, based upon more than 40 years of floating Ozark streams in canoes. Longer is better than shorter. You can still turn a 14-15 ft. solo canoe easily once you get some practice. But you can't easily make a short canoe go straight without a lot of corrective strokes. And the shorter a canoe is, the more difficult it is to store your extra fishing rods and keep the tips inside the canoe so that they don't snag on passing brush. I wouldn't have a 10 ft. canoe, period. I don't want something that is a barge to paddle, so I won't consider a canoe that is very wide. You'll have problems just in reaching the water for an efficient paddle stroke (which means keeping the paddle somewhat vertical) if the canoe is too wide. If you have to stand up, I guess a wide canoe is your best choice, unless you invest in some stabilizers. Stabilizers work, but negate the advantage a canoe has in going through narrow and brushy areas. A solo canoe should weigh less than 55 pounds max, and I really don't want one that's much over 45 pounds. Solo means carrying it by yourself to and from the river, and I use a lot of accesses that require long or difficult carries. The best canoe I've found for my own personal uses is the Wenonah Vagabond in Royalex. If you're a larger person than I am (5'8', 170 pounds) the Wenonah Wilderness might be a better choice. The Old Town Pack is a little short and low volume, but I used one for many years with no problems, once I moved the seat forward about 6-8 inches. The Wenonah Solo Plus is good for a large person, but at best is just okay for smaller tandem paddlers. The Mohawk Solo 13 is pretty good, the Solo 14 probably better.

The short answer is, because the MDC folks didn't want to inconvenience anybody they didn't absolutely have to. They were and are afraid that there would be too much opposition to the special management areas if they also limited the use of live bait. On the trout management areas, there was less "traditional" angling and more of a catch and release/artificial lures mindset among most of the trout anglers, so there was less opposition. Since in the smallmouth special management areas there were a lot more bait fishermen and goggle-eye fishermen and bait fishing for other species, they figured there would be a whole lot more users that would be shut out. Fact is, regardless of how some folks feel that MDC is unresponsive to the concerns of many of their constituents, they really DON'T want to tick people off and cause greater headaches for the commissioners and the enforcement folks. It really took some courage and some perseverance to even get ANY special smallmouth management areas set up...there was a lot of opposition to it within the department, from people who were afraid the average angler wouldn't go for it. I'm not entirely happy with the present state of smallmouth regulations in MO, but I do understand the MDC mindset even if I don't always agree with it.

Well, Chief, I did a LITTLE better than you on my first trip of the year, Jan. 2...one largemouth about that size, one spotted bass about the same size, and one smallmouth about 15 inches. And I considered it a pretty good day for middle of the winter and high, murky, 38 degree water. Beat the heck out of staying home!

The spring branch is 1.25 miles long and drops about 60 feet in that stretch, with a flow of over 300 cfs, so that would make it one of the most dependable short whitewater runs in the Ozarks. There are some short pools and deep pockets, but most of it is very fast water. And PLEASE, don't think it could take the kind of pressure that flyfishing or kayaking would put on it and still be the same. The difference between Greer Spring branch and the other places we flyfish is that it has never seen any kind of wading, nor the kind of bank-tramping that flyfishing would subject it to, AND it doesn't see strong floods like the streams do. The bottom is covered with various aquatic plants and the banks and rocks are draped with moss, and the growth never gets washed away like it does all the time on the streams (and worn away on the trout park spring branches). You absolutely CANNOT subject it to a lot of wading and bank clambering without totally destroying the character of this spring branch.

I agree completely with jd. C'mon, guys, you haven't ever been able to fish the spring branch before, so it ain't like you'd be losing anything. The fragility of both the banks and the bottom of the spring branch is such that it would be entirely ruined by allowing fishing either by wading or bank fishing. This is the only really pristine spring branch in the Ozarks, and is a treasure of international significance. Let those spring branch trout live in peace and let that gorgeous canyon remain as is.

The biggest problem with floods in Missouri, as far as trout are concerned, is on streams that have a lot of escapees from the trout parks. A hatchery trout that hasn't been in the river long probably isn't nearly as well-equipped to handle flooding as one that has lived through a time or two of high water. Two times, I've been on the Current below Montauk after big floods, and found trout stranded in puddles up in the bottoms that had been flooded. A wild trout knows better than to get stranded. Warm water gamefish may have a few problems with wintertime floods, especially if it's a flood that resulted from snowmelt or very cold rains and you've got a lot of 33 degree floodwater. The fish are sluggish at that temp and may be washed out of their sheltered places. But I don't think it happens often even with warm water fish, and since trout are a cold water gamefish to begin with, they shouldn't be much affected by cold water, I wouldn't think. All streams aren't equal. I once floated the upper end of Huzzah Creek, which has a lot of wide open gravel bars and shallow water at normal levels. I was floating after some really big spring floods, and many of the smallmouth I caught were pretty scarred up, with scales missing and frayed fins. Looked like they'd really been battered by the flood. I guess that they didn't have good enough places to get out of the current in that kind of habitat. But mostly the fish don't seem much the worse for wear after big floods.

About the only way I fish tubes is with a split shot inserted into the tube and then an EWG hook texas-rigged and skin hooked. I just pick a hook that I can insert into the head of the tube and back out, then run through the body of the tube very close to the rear end of the body and the point skin-hooked. So depending upon the size of the tube body, this can be anything from a 1/0 to a 3/0 hook. The split shot (or egg sinker) should be big enough that you have to force it up into the tube. You can run it all the way up to the head and get a spiraling, nose first fall, or push it back more toward the center of the body and get a more level fall. With such a rig, you need a rod heavy enough to set the hook through plasic if necessary. I use a medium spinning rod, but I always use braided line, which helps immensely in hook setting. My usual guideline on color is, if the water is clear, you want something that is as close as possible to matching the color of the bottom of the river or lake. If it's a clear Ozark stream, the gravel is usually a light brownish color, so I'll use a tube that is brownish. If it's a lake, the bottom is often algae colored and more greenish, so I'll go with a more greenish colored tube. If the water is murky, color doesn't matter a whole lot and I'm likely to use black.

Yeah, I'm a little bummed out about the magnitude of the flooding...I was hoping for a little high water after these relatively warm rains. The fishing for winter smallmouth would have been excellent today and tomorrow if the rivers were fishable. But it doesn't look like any of them will be. Then it's supposed to get cold again. Since I probably won't go smallmouth fishing, guess I'll have to head down to the Current tomorrow and do some flyfishing. Dang, hate it when that happens!

Yeah, I don't pay any attention to the regs because I don't keep any trout and only use flies anyway, so I kinda forgot that the some of the rivers are red or white ribbon areas. So my revised answer would be any natural stream, no trout parks, no pay to fish places, no tailwaters, no lakes. Although don't get me wrong, I've fished pay to fish areas, fished the trout parks in the winter, and fished tailwaters, and enjoyed myself. But I was fishing with others more for socializing than for the fishing. I think the true test of what I prefer is where I go when I'm going by myself...and I've NEVER trout fished by myself anywhere but in the natural streams.

Since I don't do a whole lot of Missouri trout fishing (much prefer river smallmouth), when I do I want the best experience possible. To me that's the blue ribbon trout streams, no contest. In fact, I don't HAVE a second choice, although if I lived closer to Taneycomo it would probably be a strong second. I'll take the Current, the North Fork, the Eleven Point, the Niangua, and the Meramec...you can have all the trout parks and pay to fish places. I might like the wild trout creeks if I lived closer to them, as well, but the closest one to me is Blue Spring Creek, and it is very tough fishing.

Jd, I agree with most of what you wrote in your last two posts. Only thing I REALLY disagree with is your advice for families to go elsewhere or during the week. Believe it or not, there are still a lot of working parents that can't take off in the middle of the week. And, it goes completely against my grain to "allocate" the most popular stretches of river (which are some of the most beautiful and fun to float) to the party idiots to the exclusion of everybody else. A certain amount of that is inevitable, in that the most popular sections will always be the most crowded on weekends, so there is no way to get the kind of quality experience that you'll get on those sections in mid-week or during the cooler weather seasons. But you shouldn't have to "give" those sections, or any others, to people who are breaking the law and making it more obnoxious than necessary for everybody that isn't doing exactly what they are. However, I agree with your statement that VISIBLE law enforcement presence is what we need. From conservation agents that hide in the woods to catch lawbreakers instead of being obvious and DISCOURAGING law breaking, to sheriffs' departments that close down a problem access instead of simply showing up at it at 11 PM on Saturday nights and arresting everybody that's causing the problems, to county commissioners and legislators that want to pass more laws instead of allocating the funds to allow law enforcement to put in more time and manpower enforcing existing laws, seems like we're always doing things bassackwards, as my grandpappy used to say.

Okay, guys, I've probably gone through this before, but here's the story on spotted bass in Missouri Ozark streams. Spotted bass were not native to any of the streams flowing north out of the Ozarks, including the Niangua, Pomme de Terre, Osage, Gasconade, and Meramec and all their tributaries. Nor were they native to the small creeks in eastern Missouri that flow directly into the Mississippi south of St. Louis, like Joachim, Establishment, Saline, and Apple creeks. They WERE native to all the south flowing streams, including anything flowing into the Elk, Spring, White, Black, St. Francis, and Castor rivers. However, in the streams where they are native, they historically made up only a small portion of the bass population compared to smallmouths, because most of those streams were too cool, clear, and fast to be good spotted bass habitat. In fact, it was only in the slower, murkier downstream sections of most of these rivers that you could find spotted bass. The only real exception is the St. Francis, which has always had spotted bass throughout its length. I don't know for sure, but suspect that the Spring in southwest MO also had spotted bass over much of its length as well, due to the habitat. But until the big dams were built, they were practically non-existent in the James River, as well as in Bryant Creek. And over on Black River, they were rare until you got down pretty close to Poplar Bluff. The dams changed that. Spotted bass became well-established in Norfork and Table Rock, and the spotted bass population in those lakes became a "reservoir" of spotted bass that continually replenished the streams above that were decent spotted bass habitat. If the stream WASN'T decent spotted bass habitat, like the North Fork (too cold), they never moved up into it. On Black River, the flood control reservoir (Clearwater Lake) was built in the midsection of the river, and warmer, murkier water coming off the top of the lake made the river below it perfect spotted bass habitat, so now smallmouth are rare below Clearwater. Getting back to the James for a minute, it probably didn't help that Springfield's sewage effluent and storm water run-off made the river murkier and more fertile and better spotted bass habitat. So that's pretty much where it stands in the southern Ozark streams--spotted bass were native, but greatly expanded their populations due to the lakes. Not much you can do about that except put longer length limits on the smallmouth and largemouth, since spotted bass don't grow big enough fast enough, and if the length limits are equal on all three species it favors the spotted bass. Now, the northern Ozark streams are different. They tend to be a little slower, a little murkier, and a little warmer (less spring-fed) than the southern Ozark rivers. So they actually were always decent spotted bass habitat. But spotted bass simply never made it to them, so the smallmouth had no competition from spotted bass and thrived in these rivers. But at some point fairly soon after Lake of the Ozarks was built, spotted bass somehow got into it. Nobody knows where they came from. They thrived in the lake and the Osage River system, colonizing the Sac, lower Pomme de Terre, and the lower sections of streams flowing into the lower Osage like the Moreau and Tavern. Once they got into those streams, they pretty much took over from smallmouths where the habitat was good for spotted bass. They never did well in the Niangua, partly because Tunnel Dam has always formed a barrier to their spread, and also because Bennett Spring makes the lower Niangua too cool for them. If they ever get into the upper Niangua, above Bennett, in any real numbers, it could really be bad because the upper Niangua would be excellent spotted bass habitat. However, they apparently never made it any farther than the Osage tributaries from Lake of the Ozarks. You have to realize that the Missouri River has historically been just too muddy to allow them to survive well in it, so once they got to the lower end of the Osage they probably couldn't go any farther...except that they DID go upstream just a few miles to get into the Moreau. But back in the 1960s, MDC decided it would be a good idea to stock them in some northern Missouri streams, including the Loutre River, which flows into the Missouri just a few miles downstream from the Gasconade. Spotted bass probably made it into the Gasconade from the Loutre River stocking. As for the other northern Ozark streams, they could possibly have made it into them from the Loutre stocking as well by going on down the Missouri and Mississippi, but the timing argues against it. That's my part of the Ozarks, and I've fished all those streams--Meramec, Bourbeuse, Big, Joachim, Establishment, Saline, and Apple--for nearly 50 years. The FIRST stream that spotted bass showed up in was Apple Creek, which is the southernmost large tributary creek of the Mississippi, down in Cape Girardeau County. I fished Apple Creek extensively in the mid-1970s, and spotted bass were common in it below the Appleton mill dam, non-existent above the dam. At that point, I was also fishing lower Saline Creek, the next major creek to the north (upstream on the Mississippi), and there were no spotted bass in it. But by the late 1970s spotted bass had taken over the lower South Fork of Saline Creek, and the creek below the forks. By the early 1980s they had taken over the lower parts of Establishment and Joachim creeks, the next upstream tribs of the Mississippi, but the didn't start showing up in the lower Meramec, the final Mississippi tributary just south of St. Louis, until the early 80s. Once they got into the Meramec, it took them about 6 or 7 years to pretty much take over the lower ends of the Bourbeuse and Big, the two Meramec tribs that run into the lower river, as well as the Meramec up to about St. Clair. But the Guths Mill dam on the Bourbeuse, and the several mill dams on Big River, stopped their spread for quite a while. They made it past Guths Mill on the Bourbeuse by the early 1990s, and the dams on Big River by about the same time. There were no further barriers on Big River, and by 2000 they were colonizing the upper river all the way up to Desloge. Noser Mill dam on the Bourbeuse slowed their spread up the Bourbeuse, but they are now above it. So where did they come from originally, and why? The MDC biologists have theories involving simple habitat changes that made those streams more friendly to spotted bass, but that neither explains how they got there in the first place, nor do I think it's really very valid. Big River and especially the Bourbeuse have ALWAYS been relatively slow, not heavily spring fed, and somewhat murky--excellent spotted bass habitat. The lower Meramec is the same way. I haven't really seen habitat changes on these streams that would be significant enough to change them from smallmouth to spotted bass streams. The persistent drought we had up until this past year, and the warmer than normal weather conditions of the last decade or so up until last year, made some possible changes, but the spotted bass were very well established before any of that happened. Nope, you can't blame it on habitat changes, in my opinion. You simply have to accept that fact that the smallmouth were doing fine in these rivers, even though they were good spotted bass habitat, SIMPLY BECAUSE they didn't have to compete with spotted bass. So, how did the spots get there where they didn't belong? Here's my theory, and it's a little convoluted but it's the only thing that fits the facts of WHEN they got to all those streams. First, you have to think about WHY spotted bass may never have made it into those streams before. Although they are native to the St. Francis and Castor, just a few miles across the divide from the Meramec system and the Mississippi tributaries, in order for them to actually reach those streams they would have had to go down the Castor and St. Francis far down into Arkansas before getting to the lower Mississippi, then a long way up the Mississippi. They are native to the Ohio, so they could have come up from it, but obviously they didn't. The reason was probably because, until the dams were built on the upper MISSOURI river, up in the Dakotas and Montana, the Missouri was EXTREMELY silty, and kept the Mississippi quite silty until the Ohio came in and diluted the silt a bit. So the silty water probably kept spotted bass from colonizing the northern Ozark streams originally. But near the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Diversion Channel was constructed. It was a big ditch that diverted the waters of the Castor and Whitewater rivers, which used to run pretty far down into Arkansas. The Channel was built to drain the swamps of southeast MO, and it took the Castor and Whitewater, streams that had native spotted bass, and ran them into the Mississippi just south of Cape Girardeau. Now the spots had a MUCH shorter distance to travel up the Mississippi, only about 20 miles or so to the first trib, Apple Creek. But they still didn't make it for more than 50 years. Why? Two things. The Mississippi was still extremely silty from the Missouri until the big Missouri dams were built in mid-century. And, it was also extremely polluted until the Clean Water Act in the late 1960s started cleaning it up. But once the silt and pollution was reduced by the early 1970s, the spots had a clear path to the northern Ozark streams. So, it would seem to be an unforeseen combination of three seemingly unrelated happenings--the Diversion Channel, big dams in the Dakotas, and the Clean Water Act, that brought spotted bass to the Meramec and its tributaries! However they got there, they have been an unmitigated disaster. Those three rivers were probably the best big smallmouth streams in the Ozarks before the spotted bass showed up. I was catching big smallmouths on the Meramec in the Pacific area, and in the lower end of Big River, when there were no spotted bass to be found. But once the spots appeared, the smallmouths began to disappear. They interbreed with smallmouths, diluting the gene pool. They out-compete and out-reproduce smallies on these streams, and it almost seems like for every spotted bass, there will be one less smallmouth, the correlation is that clear. The Meramec below St. Clair, the Bourbeuse below Noser Mill, and Big River all the way up past St. Francois State Park, are all mere shadows of the great smallmouth streams they used to be. Apparently, the upper Meramec, fed by Maramec Spring and other good-sized springs, is just a bit too fast and cool to make good spotted bass habitat, because they have never become real common on it above Meramec State Park. But Big River proved to be good spot habitat throughout almost its entire length, and it's only a matter of time before they take over nearly all the Bourbeuse, given character of that river. So, now the regs are that you can kill up to 12 spotted bass, no length limit, over the entire Meramec river system, and much of Big River also has a one fish, 15 inch length limit on smallmouths, entirely to protect the smallmouths from spotted bass. And the good news is, either the regs or something else seems to be working, because although the spotted bass still outnumber smallmouths over large portions of these streams, the smallies that are left seem to be holding their own and even in some cases making a bit of a comeback. So please, anybody who fishes the Meramec and tributaries, if you love smallmouths, KILL SPOTTED BASS!

If and when the New Madrid fault complex acts up, the areas most likely to be heavily damaged are those that are not sitting on solid bedrock. Most of the Ozark area and much of southern Illinois probably won't be too badly damaged, but Southeast MO, up the Ohio Valley, and down the Mississippi are likely to be in bad shape...anywhere that buildings and other structures sit on sediment or fill dirt. If it's a big one, many places in the St. Louis area will be badly damaged as well. The New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812 were some of the strongest ever recorded in North America, and their effects were felt over amazing distances. For the three month period from December of 1811 through February of 1812, there were three major quakes and almost constant smaller ones. That's a LOT of earth movement. And the major quakes were at least 8.0 on the Richter Scale, according to the best estimates. The biggest quake actually rang church bells in BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. And a metronome in Charleston, SC, never stopped moving during that three month period. Reelfoot Lake was indeed formed from the quakes, but it was formed by a downdropping of the land where the lake now is, and then filled by incoming streams. The Mississippi, however, DID run backwards at least once as a down-dropping rift formed across the bed of the river, making the bed drop enough that the river below ran backwards to fill the depression. There were also eyewitness accounts of rifts forming that caused 1 to 2 foot high waterfalls in the Mississippi. Any similar quake of that magnitude today would most definitely be a truly major and lasting disaster. Much of this area has not prepared for earthquakes in the way that California has...fewer buildings built to be quake resistant, and it's probable that all the major bridges across the Mississippi from Memphis to St. Louis will collapse. It's possible that the dams that form Kentucky and Barkley Lakes would fail, along with at least a possibility that Wappapello Dam wouldn't survive, either. The hit to the economy of the region and indeed the United States would make Hurricane Katrina look like a hiccup. And, according to some data, the New Madrid fault zone produces a major earthquake, on average, about every 200 years. So we may be due. I'm not staying up at night worrying about it, but my wife and I have an earthquake plan for what to do if we're at home. I don't think we'd suffer serious damage, since the house sits on bedrock and is a wood frame home (brick homes are much more likely to collapse, since the brick doesn't flex as wood does). But the first thing we'd do in the case of an earthquake, after either running out into the open field in front or getting under something heavy if we couldn't make it out of the house, would be to shut off the propane at the tank outside. We have a tankless water heater so that wouldn't be a problem, but copper gas lines could still be damaged throughout the house.