tjm

you should report them to the biologist. Them being nocturnal, giggers are more apt to see them ta anyone else.

I've known a lot of people that wouldn't eat any black bass (they were talking LM & SM) caught in the warm months because of the worms. I don't know if summer has anything to do with the worms or not, but that is what the old folks used to say. On the other hand I have read that cooking turns them things into food. (both the bass and it's worms) Think if you git rid of the fish eating birds you will git rid of the worms though.

I call them plugs. I've seen similar called troll minnows. Eyes look Cordell, possibly http://fishingenthusiast.blogspot.com/2012/09/september-walleye-lure-of-month-cordell.html

Christmas lights?

A 2010 FWS pub that I am reading says that estimated bobcats in MO. were 18-20,000 and in AR. 14,049 by hunter surveys, harvest . analysis and sign stations. Mo. cat population was stable and AR cat population was increasing.

Are there many that fish that area without a guide? I would guess the use of guides is mostly by tourists? If traveling and sleeping in a hotel/motel with no cooking facility, very likely no one would keep fish. The thing about daily creel surveys is a single fisher might get interviewed fifty times, his opinion could become the most prevalent answer simply because he is there daily.

The condition of the signs is an important comment, by far most signs I've seen at MDC areas are deteriorated, some unreadable. One area they could make improvement. Have a periodic check & replacement of signs. Some signs appear to get vandalized too, I see a board with just nails and a bit of yellow plastic.

I'm thinking in terms of temperature, paving on roads or mall parking lots heat all the rainfall several degrees before it hits the creeks, thus, warming the entire river; studies and reports I have read indicate that five degrees difference of temperature can make the difference between ideal and marginal habitat. I asked about shade trees bordering the river, because solid shade keeps water cool.Temps and water color seem to be the dividing lines between perfect for smallmouth and perfect for spots. Fertility might be another remedy if there is a way to reduce it. As users of this river we are at the mercy of the landowners and the development they see fit to implement. imo, if the river stretches Al described were already ideal for spotted bass back in the 70s-80s-90s and land use/development has made those areas warmer and/or more stained or turbid, you/we might be wasting time and money trying to reverse nature's process. Tilting windmills perhaps. Might be better to just examine how best to use spotted bass, have spotted bass only tournaments. Market spotted bass boats and tackle. Sell spotted bass T shirts. Make lemonade. Maybe build chilling stations to lower the river temperature of some feeder creeks. Start a program to reward landowners for planting/maintaining timber adjacent to all the streams in the system. Interesting thread, I've learned a couple of things.

So, I read this that Al thinks spotted bass got into the Meramec system from the Mississippi and Chief thinks they came from the Mississippi, is that it? How they got in the big river seems unimportant, that is where they came to the Meramec from? Al says that even before the spotted bass got there there were stretches of river that were ideal habitat for them, spots weren't there then because they were still downstream. Once the spots found those ideal stretches of river they flourished, at the expense of smallmouth. So, by this observation those pieces of river must be more suitable for spotted bass than they are for smallmouth bass. I guess from his writings that Al has closely observed this river and so his opinion carries weight. Then the Jen from MDC comes along and says that certain stretches of this system are better habitat for spotted bass than for smallmouth , it appears to me that she is in agreement with Al, why is her opinion discounted?

Pam is canola oil, my experience with any vegetable oil is that it is gooey to start with then turns sticky and eventually becomes gummy. I wouldn't put it on any thing. I have sprayed spinning tackle with WD40 as lazy maintenance, saw no harmful effects and it would repel water for a while. Reel oil or petroleum jelly as mentioned above would work on the same principle, WD40 is always right there though. I don't know how it would react with fluorocarbon or the modern braids, it did not seem to bother mono.

We changed it just a few years ago so that they could have river boats casinos in the City. Same crowd can get it fixed to have a casino in Branson if they want to. A good pr campaign and a bit money put in the right places and we can change the state constitution to allow casinos in a wheelbarrow.

I'm not good at computer and have no idea how that happens. sorry

"Just curious though, what demographics chooses C&R? The privileged? I see people from 8 to 80 C&R in the trophy area." Any one that fishes is privileged, some more than others. As to practitioners of C&R, I would assume that the Lazy make up the greater percentage. Either too lazy to clean fish, as I was fifty years ago when I discovered how easy C&R was; or too lazy to look for new water/new fish; so release where you know you can come back to recycle it. Done that too. There is a different demographic at work though in those who would mandate C&R where the resource is not endangered.

I used to just keep the fly rod in the water up past the guides or periodically give it a wash in the river, these days I keep it at home on those kind of days. Water is always above freezing and ice turns back to water. Don't recall ice on the line ever being a problem.

Signage at access points might hit the most anglers, I've never been asked for an Email when buying a permit and I expect many anglers don't have one. Try getting a local news paper to front page an article on the subject and provide them with picture descriptions of how to ID spotted and largemouth bass. How timbered are those stretches of river where the spots are thriving? I have thought a strip of timber over hanging and shading the rivers keep the water a lot cooler and think it is especially needed on south and west banks. Cool water benefits smallmouth more than spotted bass, I think. " I think resurrecting the Spotted Bass Roundup is a great idea " Rather than just a club project/event, people in the area with an interest in that river and reducing the spotted bass population could sponsor/promote local-community-town events, perhaps get a few more people interested. MDC might even allow a free fish day for such an event?

????

One of the FWS studies theorizes that because spots nest in deep water in reservoirs that they are less affected by spring draw down than other black bass.

Would you guess (or is it known) that about three-four years is the average use of a trout in the trophy area? Take a whack at delayed mortality of C&R fish there? I know I've seen some terrible handling and release on other waters. Some long long photo ops.

me too The spots and lateral line don't stand out to me in those pictures, since you mentioned it the tail is more like a spotted, but on the water I doubt I would have noticed. I see vertical barring, is that the clue that it is hybrid rather than pure spot? Al that's a nice bit of history there and I was unaware of the northern stockings by MDC. I'll buy your theory of Mississippi migration too, makes perfect sense and fits the facts as we know them. A question, why do you reckon the spots have not displaced smallmouth in streams where they both exist historically yet have in the Meramec drainage? Is that perhaps temperature related?

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?