Gigging vs Smallmouth conflict

[MoCarp]

If the agents spent more time being VISIBLE on the streams, the lawbreakers would think about it a lot more.

I agree

[Kicknbass]

Providing they can tell the difference between a Bud Light can and a brown bass.

Boy your tough on the giggers.

IS there any limit on any of the streams as too how many canoes can be on them?

The NPS does limit the number on current river somewhat. They are still pretty liberal numbers.

agents have to be mobile as well

The MDC have boats, they could patrol the river. A greater presence on the water and in the woods would do much more to help than any other function they perform to help with prevention.

If I had my druthers, I'd much rather see a section either from Birds Nest to Onondaga or Onondaga to Meramec State Park as a special management area, because those sections DO have excellent potential to grow big fish.

I don't disagree with this change. That area above birdsnest is a bit small to grow alot of big bass per mile.

So I'm not real sure how much impact an experimental ban on gigging would really have on the present special management area, but it would seem to me to be worth a try.

I don't typically get up in the SMB managment area during gigging season, the river is too small to idle the boat while your gigging in too many areas your constently fighting the bottom. Are there quite a few folks gigging that stretch of river? I normally gig below St. Clair. When the water clears up in the winter you can many times find big schools of redhorse suckers. Unfortunately, it is not clear enough to gig many nights a year.

I'd like to see a slot limit in some areas, something like 4 fish under 14 inches and 1 over 20 inches

I love the idea of a slot limit, but I think I would lower the length on the low side to 11 or 12 inches. Most folks would turn back the fish under 10 inches and the fish over 12 inches are prime spawning size. This would allow the folks looking for a meal to keep a few sunfish, and small bass for a meal but leave the spawning size fish alone to grow to trophy size. I have fished Lake Fork in Texas and have caught a lot of big largemouth. The slot limit is 16-24 inches. A couple of years ago I caught a skinny 22 1/2" fish. The charts tell me that he weighed over 8 pounds, but the scale said under 5 pounds. The Guide I was fishing with had a customer catch a fish that weight over 10 lbs the week before but the fish only measured 23 1/2". That fish got put back and a replica was made. The replicas look better than a real mount anyway. There is really no reason to keep a big fish.

[gonefishin]

How do Otters fit into all of this? Harmful to the fishery because they eat SMB with no regards to limits or size? There are a lot of people who say Otters are causing the decline in record size SMB as well as SMB populations in general. Should they (Otters)be banished from streams that have populations of SMB. If the MDC did make certain areas trophy areas how would the Otter issue be handled?

[gonefishin]

Several things...

Wayne brings up a point that the enforcement people I've talked to at MDC always bring up...just because you're not being checked by an agent doesn't mean the agent isn't watching you. It sounds good. But I have a real problem with it. I've been checked exactly three times in my long in the tooth life on Ozark streams...no, I take that back, I've been checked twice and have seen one other agent.

Dang! You must lead a charmed life. I had my licence (and my creel) checked at least half a dozen times last year alone. I have been fishing for more than 40 years and I guarentee I have been checked at least 100 times. Maybe I just look like a law breaker. :ph34r:

[Al Agnew]

I'm not real sure about the whole otter situation. I know of some streams where I THINK the otters have really whacked the population of ALL fish bigger than minnows. And I've heard others say they've really decimated the bigger fish in some other streams. But I also know of some streams that should be really vulnerable to otter predation, that have the otters and are small enough for the fish to be pretty crowded in the winter when otters should be doing the most damage, but these streams are absolutely loaded with smallmouths and other fish. And then you take streams like Huzzah and Courtois, which have had otters for a long time and which still have about the same population of smallies they always had.

I know otters can do a whole lot of damage. But I don't believe it's happening to any great extent on the Meramec, except possibly above Maramec Spring. The river is just too big and has too many deeper pools. I'd think also that the more heavily spring fed a stream is, the less damage the otters can do because the fish never get as slow and sluggish on the spring fed streams as they do on the colder ones.

Kickinbass, the more I think about it, the more I agree with you both on the slot limit thing (lowering the lower limit to 12 inches) and on the idea that not as many people are gigging in the present special management area because it's a little smaller. Unfortunately, a LOT of people are gigging in the areas downstream, and I'm afraid that trying to close one of those areas, even experimentally, would really raise a stink. Of course, that's a problem no matter what...closing a stretch that gets little gigging anyway no matter where it is won't give you an accurate picture of the effects of gigging in a popular stretch, and closing gigging in a popular stretch is going to really make a lot of people mad.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I have been fishing for more than 40 years and I guarantee I have been checked at least 100 times. Maybe I just look like a law breaker

Might be gonefishin, I've been fishing here for about 55 years and I've only been checked twice that I can remember. Both times were on big lakes and by an agent in a boat checking everyone they came across.

It seems that for every piece of evidence against Otters in streams, there is an equal piece that indicates no damage. A lot of the real hard evidence has to do with ponds, which don't supply the water clarity nor the numbers of Crawdads to keep the Otters fed without a lot of fish.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Al,

Are their fish population survey #'s to support the notion that there is even a problem?

MDC should be able to compare some data sets from years ago to recent studies, right? Kevin Meneau should have this information for the Meramec basin and tribs. IF the data points to a decline in big fish, or in populations, trending downward over the last few years, we should be ALL over them. As to the hypothesized cause, that would be another discussion.

A group of some buddies of mine were able to form a small group, and with a little properly applied pressure, (letter writing campaign to the right people, and a website) . . . we probably appeared bigger than we really were . . . I like to think we had at least SOME impact on MDC's recent changes in the trout regulations. A few of us had discussions with the trout biologists and even got some #'s from shock-surveys down on the STMA of the Current, 11 point, Meramac, etc. The biologists blamed a lot on recent years drought conditions, and they stammered and hee-hawed about resistance that locals will put up to reg changes . . . but in the end, I think they saw the light that a LOT of concerned trout fishermen want to see more enforcement, less harvest, and tougher regulations on those areas where the fishing clearly had not been all it could be.

The same could be done with smallmouth. If we've got our facts straight and go about it right. We could form a pressure group and get some stuff done!!

Its a game of inches. Eventually we can seek the all-out ban on jet-boats from all unimpounded waters, but not just yet ; )

[jscheetz]

I know otters can cause damage as some said in ponds - and perhaps some small streams. But it is mostly exactly the same rhetoric I hear in Montana - "the wolves are killing all the" - elk, moose, deer, prarie chickens (insert favorite "sport" animal here) - - And in the valley there where my place is I have seen many, many animals fall to the hunters gun - but I have not seen even ONE wolf kill. Granted, I am not there all the time, but am plugged into the wolf management of the area, and most of the "rumors" about the wolves decimating populations is just that - rumors started and kept up by the locals who don't want others telling them what to do. I think a lot of that exists in OZ streams in relation to the otters.

Could be wrong - BUT.... if I am, then why wouldn't the solution be for people to harvest LESS fish, moose, whatever - instead of exterminate the other animal in question that is just doing what God intended him to do??? Maybe just cynical today but seems to me like it's back to most of my beef - people think it's all about them and don't want to give up any of THEIR - fish frys, gigging space, moose steaks etc etc etc etc etc - even for the sake of the planet.

Whew - OK now I feel better Sorry - gotta go hug a tree now

JS

[Forsythian]

Keep on postin' JS... it won't be long until we get to that gooey carmel center (i.e. your true view of hunting and of the yocals that inhabit your playgrounds).

Unburden yourself... you'll feel better ;-)

[jscheetz]

Forsythian,

Thanks so much for your encouragement - it is so important to have a support group. And who knows - as long as there are guys like you out there to help guide me, someday I may actually be able to be a man, and hang a dead animal or two on my wall - and maybe even a rebel flag on my truck. aaaaahhhhh - I can dream can't I.

JS