tjm

Whatever happened to this great idea?

I'm not sure that the gravel infill either helps or harms over the long term, it has been happening a long long time, that's part of the karst geology as I understand it; most of the gravel is sucked into the streams from hilltop sink holes, isn't it? There are sink holes where there were none fifty years ago and more numerous holes where they were back when, do the hundreds of earth tremors that we experience each year have something to do with this? I own about a quarter mile of limestone bluff and the leaching of minerals/formation of stalactites etc. is visually obvious over time, how does this chemically affect the streams? When I look at a creek and see no mounds of mussel shells, no hellgrammites , no numbers of crayfish I don't expect to see numbers of large fish and I don't believe catch and release will improve the food base. I suspect that over a long period the catch and release and the size limits won't make a real difference. During the last sixty, or perhaps the last thirty, years (or maybe this is a thousand year trend) there has been some change in the water chemistry that is harming the life forms? Frogs, there are more in my yard and field than on the creek and I've not heard a bull frog in decades. So is it unnatural that selection that predators are adapting to a less bountiful prey base?

Not enough access for new Americans to do any harm, city parks and the few MDC access points don't have much effect on the streams as whole, mostly they only benefit the folks wealthy enough to go boating. No public access on Little Sugar. But golf grass isn't the only source of nutrient, there is a zillion acres of fescue that was not here at all before 1970. In your search for bait did you see many madtoms or sculpin? I don't do as much as I once did but my limited searches show them scarce also.

I believe the crawdad loss is for reasons other than rocks and gravel, saw some odd looking crayfish in the '90s for a few years and then near none since. I suspect exotics took over then eventually died out, no proof. Think Indian Creek still holds good numbers of crawdads, it did a few years ago. It doesn't flow from Ar or a golf course either and that may make a difference. My point was, is there evidence that those streams can support a great number of larger fish? Won't the predators outnumber the prey at some point? I have fished, waded, swam in the two sugar creeks since the mid '50s and I see probably ten times fewer fishermen on the whole drainage than there were back when. More floaters on the Elk/Cowskin, but really few fishers and they mostly go back where they came from after the weekend, imo, any loss of fish quality/size / quantity is unrelated to the consumption. I grew up with stories of seining those streams with hog wire and two teams of horses, hauling a wagon load of fish at a time; the old ones didn't fish for sport. Heard anecdotes of hand catching cats over fifty pounds out of those creeks too. It may be our modern methods keep us from seeing the real big fish or that mans desire for green grass is killing the streams' historic character.

Did anyone keep records of the prey species available to stream predators in the 19th or 20th centuries, when the fish reportedly grew so large? My mind tells me that there were lots more crawdads in the Elk River tributaries in the '50s than there are now, I believe there were lots more crawdads in the '80s than there are now. Where as a small boy I caught scads of crawdads and even my kids caught some, I don't recall seeing any in several years. I'm sure there are still some there, but so few that they aren't usually seen.

See, they kept turning the little ones loose and ate (or mounted) all the big gene pool. It's easy to see why all we got now is fiddlers, that is all our predecessors let go. Blame Mark Twain and his buddies for all the small fish left nowadays. Never read about the guy guy that caught 100# plus fish and turned it loose to reproduce, nope they mounted all them genetics.

I've always said that limits should be set to a maximum size to keep. Say no keeper small mouth over 15" or whatever. The keeping of the biggest fish hurts in a couple ways. We are removing both the eligible brood stock and the genetics required to grow that big. Keeping only small fish removes the runt genes and utilizes fish that would normally be eaten by the lunkers that some one now has mounted on a wall, releasing small fish only increases the probability that the small fish genes will be passed on. Once was a 4 1/4# brown in my little creek that over a three year time I caught and released over fifty times, one day I watched as a fellow caught her and and kept her on a stringer in hot sunshine where she was looking unfit to eat by the time he left the area a few hours later. The same group threw back several of those 11 1/2" fish that will never get any bigger than 11 1/2" due to genetics. All according to law, but she will never spawn again. My thoughts are that trophy fishermen deserve to ruin our fisheries, they spend the big bucks to so, and that the agencies involved in setting size limits want smaller fish.

I thought walleye were nonnative, I have read that some place in the past?

And the gravel guards really work? I've looked at those in the last couple years and been skeptical that they would stay down when the gravel runs over shoe top deep. I never liked having to deal with all the hassle of putting on and taking off multiple pieces two or three times a day either when jumping from one spot to another, either. Cabelas lists a lot of different options in the catalog but the store near me sure don't stock much. How do those booty foots go by shoe size are the feet stretchy or do you wad the extra up? Guess I need to make a point to look closer at them, mostly been just looking for a boot foot that would fit me half way. Currently in pvc and oversized sneakers, but that is meant to be temporary.

So, how do you keep the sand and pea stone out of those separate boots? I haven't bought new chest waders since about the time Simms started in business, but back in my younger days I surely preferred boot foots and canvass. Opened this thread because I'm getting tired of wet wading and thought I'd look at what there is out there these days.