tjm

I suspect the entire hatchery and stocking program depends heavily on those 4 fish limit anglers more than it does the C&R crowd. A stocking once every 2-3 years should be all that's needed for a C&R area by full time expert fishers. The entire basis of the trout program is put and kill. It would be interesting to survey all purchasers of permits on the subject of trophy versus take some home conditions. 500/1, 1000/1, 10000/1 in favor of meat; what's your guess? C&R anglers are ten times more vocal but I have the feeling that they all post on this forum. Take a count Huh? You may overestimate the requirements to join this board, they let me join and I am both a poor fisher and less than part time, not more than 50-60 hours a year these days, from some of the reports I read even some of the better fishers are not full time at it. My part time experience does go back over fifty years though so it might all add up to a year so of full time fishing. Even in the years I fished 300 days a year it was part time and more about me than about dedication to conserving an invasive species (trout).

There was a study about bass and Bergman's Rule, but I don't know the conclusions it reached, if any. (Increased size with increased latitude.) For sure though a stocked fish is not a native fish. It is a stocked fish and if it has growth attributes that surpass the native fish, it very likely will become invasive and extirpate the native species, either by devouring them or by hybridization. imho, we should learn from past mistakes of this nature. Concentrate any efforts on the fish we have and accept the limitations they might have. If I want to fish for exotics, I can always go to where the exotics are native.

Biology loses to politics every time.

If the fish is native, why would it need stocking?

Probably won't be getting any changes from DNR, fishing doesn't seem to be their focus. Used to be a lot of gravel mining here as well and the creek has certainly changed since it stopped, I'm not sure why it stopped, but if anything it seems there are more big smallmouth caught now than then. And this is as to what I see and hear of, science might prove my observations false or others might have different observations. Also, the size and nature of the annual floods has changed over that same period, so that may be a factor in the channel changes, on this stream. I wonder if there are less wintering holes capacity wise or if they are just in different spots and not as abrupt. I'll throw another question out there with Jim's; as pertains to forage and habitation, what impact do you guys see or suppose increased power boating has on these streams? Bottom disturbance, bank erosion, debris disturbance etc. must have some effect on things like crawdads and minnows? I'm guessing that any of the above factors is worth a couple of objective studies.

Why were these dredgings stopped?

Not knowing the Meramec up close and personal, I think these should be examined prior to any changes of regulations, forage is probably the main ingredient in size production of any animal. A comprehensive study of forage in the system shouldn't take an awful long time to complete, set up a coop or something that would get a gang of students working on it. Either find the cause of poor growth or eliminate forage as a factor. I have always thought latitude a major factor in smallmouth size. How do you think this will affect the river as whole, or smallmouth in particular? Has this improved some other body of water in the past?

Do you be careful out there TA , if a horse comes through the windshield it can bleed about 5 gallons all over your upholstery and fill the floor pans. Chevy ain't worth much after that. Don't know what kinda damage a surrey would do. 0230, musta been a good singin.

How deep and wide is that 5 mile area? Any of it wadable?

Road kill numbers are down on deer, turkey and German Baptists I believe. Or maybe I just don't get out on the roads that much. Armadillos are still plentiful in the roads though. We lost all local turkeys in the 90s due to bad weather during hatch in several consecutive years. They have not moved back in and probably were only here because of former stocking programs. More important to the question though might be the general lack of fertility in these worn out mountains, the entire food chain is dependent on tiny stuff that exists in fertile areas to a greater extent than in oak barrens.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/lake-turnover/

Restricting the take in a put and take fishery seems a bit odd to me. Restricting the stocking and only stocking fish over 5# sounds feasible, maybe. Turn it all into C&R. Use the rest of the hatching facilities to grow more fish for the winter pond stocking. fwiw, I recently saw a pond full of 8-9"ers at Neosho that the sign said was meant for Taneycomo. Set a maximum length to keep limit, it seems to me would leave all the big fish to get bigger. Allowing me to eat a15" fish when you want it to reach 16"+ just seems backwards; wasted growth time. You could increase the numbers and set a max limit of six less than 13", keep no biguns; meat fishers would have more by increased numbers and the trophy fish could eat their smaller cousins. So, "a verbal survey" is one done by phone or on the lake? Do they just stop random people and ask some questions while marking down on their pad what ever they want to? Census gal came round asking, she didn't like my answers I guess she kept marking "other".

About 4' lighter. I used to carry, launch and solo in a 17' Lowe Line , stand to pole it. Think it weighs about 80#, at Cabalas the guy had me looking at a kayak that was about 70# just carry my fat and have enough over to be safe. Been a bit since I looked on line seems that it was in that neighborhood for most of them. My interest in the kayaks was actually more about the rooftop transport. I need to go up the pasture and see if I can still tote that old Lowe, been a few years since I did. But iirc a 12' O.T. canoe was around 50# and could float 500#

There is always that SCOTUS decision way back in the 18xxs that is quoted in Elder and says that navigability of each stream has to be determined in a court. That case was about that Federal law that says all streams that can float a canoe are navigable. I'm guessing that EPA rule is in violation of the SCOTUS rule; but til some one fights it and takes it all the way EPA will go on collecting the fines. Does a Federal agency have the authority to over ride a US Supreme Court ruling? It appears to me that in our court system a fact can be known by all but only becomes a fact legally when a court rules it a fact. Even if the case law would apply to a particular stream, it doesn't until a court rules that it does. Common knowledge that your 90 year old relative is daffy doesn't make her/him daffy, only a court can decide that. Common knowledge that steam boats pulled barges up the local spring branch doesn't make that spring branch navigable unless a court rules it so. Every case I have read and some other legal opinions all say the same thing. I don't think the laws are ignored, I just think no one has had the gumption to get court rulings on all these small streams.

How does that work out? I was thinking I might get a kayak, they are supposed to be it all and lighter too, by the time one is big enough to carry a grownup and stable enough to stand in/on the length and weight are in the range with canoes?

Didn't recognize the ramp is why I asked, I don't know the river that well even though it's 4 miles from me. Not being a power boater I don't know the places that are accessible to them and that doesn't look like either of the two ramps I do know of, but it seems that the streams change after every flood so maybe it is a place I've been. Doesn't matter unless we are thinking banning boats on special management waters. How fast was that boat traveling the first, say, 8 minutes? Video gets me disoriented but it seemed they went 5-12 miles updown stream.

Where and how did you identify the stretch of river? Lot of water went by at high speed the first several minutes and then it appeared to me that the water was small as a tributary might be. I couldn't tell because I never gigged from a boat, (gigging used to be a wading game) like that but he looked incompetent. Looked to me like he was hitting badly.

Ethics is like religion or politics in that it varies with occasion and the people involved. A very twisted and convoluted branch of philosophy. I think there is no action that can not be shown to be ethical under some one of the systems of ethics. Chumming for fish is exactly the same as chumming for deer and both are time honored traditions in some places and among some people. I think ethics of chumming is like ethics of catch and release or ethics of gill netting gamefish, it exists only in the eye of the beholder. It depends only on the time and place. Any action can be justified or condemned by one religion or another. So we are left to look at the legality of it and say if it is legal it is legal. We could attempt to change the legality of one action or another, but then we may be infringing of others "natural rights" . Some us would probably think bass tournaments are ethical, I don't. Some seem to think that eating a bass in unethical, I just think there are tasting fish, others think it is the highest and best use of a god given resource.Is it ethical for me to restrict your natural right to eat a crappie? Or a hamburger? A vegan might say "yes", not only ethical but of great benefit to the universe. Is using a paid guide ethical? Isn't that akin to buying your fish or game? Didn't the custom of tipping a guide come from the thought that paid guides was unethical? Is there a difference between paying a guide to put you over fish with electronics and paying the same guide to put the fish under you with chum? Corn may not hurt trout and maybe they can digest some corn, but I have seen days on small streams that had trout with swollen bellies floating belly up or laying upside down on the bottom, and cut open half a dozen to find them with nothing in their digestive tract except yellow corn. One fishery biologist, when I reported it said unequivocally that whole corn could not pass through a trout, said he also thought it created a chemical reaction/imbalance or something like that, fermentation maybe, I forget, long time passing.The fact that they are chumming that heavy and the trout are not dying is most encouraging.

By gig or line? Think that is all C&R no Stabbing.

Isn't that lake in Canada? Those are invasive Canadian fish. Wet back fish. Kill them all and let the cook sort them out. Gosh I hope we Ozarkians never get as stupid as the communists in New York. About anything.

That same site indicates tench were imported about the same time as the other German fish, presumably by the same idiots, apparently stocked at several places in Mo and failed, including two or more stockings in Spring River (SWMo) drainage, at least one stocking in Hickory Creek. Really is remarkable how hard the US government tried to destroy our native fisheries.

So, what caused the large huge white space in my above post? and can that be edited out if I do it again? never mind I fixed that but can not remove/delete this, ...

I've caught redbreast in New England, colloquially roach, and thought I had seen some locally; so according to this they were established in Flat Creek Cassville MO in 1960 survey. https://nas.er.usgs.gov/viewer/omap.aspx?SpeciesID=379 and this shows in upper White River drainage AR in 1980 https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/collectioninfo.aspx?SpeciesID=379 Brookies that look like that in the northeastern US come out of streams that you can step across and often the state people don't know or don't admit their existence. The meat is bright orange and delicious.

I didn't like that F150 much and at two years old with around 8,500 miles it sold for $1700. Would love to have the '66 Mustang I sold for $700 in '71 back, I think it would be worth more now. Still it a marvelous thing when machinery is taken care of how long it does last.

I bought a new F150 for $3100 in 1974. But that was more or less real dollars, the world hadn't quite figured out fiat money; and gas was still around 30 cents a gallon. Your motor cost about 19% of my truck cost, so today should sell for around $10,000.