Other Ozark Stream Or Should I Say Smallie/spot Debate

[eric1978]

But like I said in another post and you said here, since record keeping didn't start until the early 1800's, we can't really say with much positivity what was native and what wasn't. We only know that they have been here since we showed up.

That's pretty much the definition of native. Plants and animals are only non-native when humans had something to do with their habitation.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Could someone toss eric a lifeline? He is in over his head again.

All I can say is for as much time as you spend reading and posting on this board, I would think you could use some of it to research for yourself. I think you may be quite surpised at what you would discover.

Anyway, I am outta here until Monday. Let the punches fly.

[eric1978]

Could someone toss eric a lifeline? He is in over his head again.

All I can say is for as much time as you spend reading and posting on this board, I would think you could use some of it to research for yourself. I think you may be quite surpised at what you would discover.

Anyway, I am outta here until Monday. Let the punches fly.

If you have a different definition of "native," please share it with the rest of us.

You sure have a knack for turning conversation into personal arguments. It seems like you're much more interested in watching "punches fly" than talking about fishing. There wasn't an ounce of animosity on this thread until you chimed in. I respect everyone's opinion, including yours, and if I don't agree with you I'll try to state my case with facts instead of sarcastic personal attacks. I guess I just won't respond to any of your posts in the future, since you clearly think that either I don't have the right to, or that anyone who disagrees with you is a moron. The only thing your condescending attitude achieves is making people think you're insecure or egotistical, and it doesn't lend itself to an enjoyable time on the forum. So take care, sir.

[creek wader]

With that said, let's put this thread to rest. And everybody go fish'n. ....wader

[ozark trout fisher]

Could someone toss eric a lifeline? He is in over his head again.

All I can say is for as much time as you spend reading and posting on this board, I would think you could use some of it to research for yourself. I think you may be quite surpised at what you would discover.

Anyway, I am outta here until Monday. Let the punches fly.

You're the only one throwing punches, and slinging mud here. No one appreciates it. I listen to your opinion and think its worth listening to. The problem lies in the fact that you don't think there is merit to anyone else's opinion, and you invariably come in with both guns blazing.

But Creek Wader is right. I'm going fishing. Maybe I'll be nicer when I get back.

[Al Agnew]

I think I understand Chief's points, although I also pretty much agree with Eric. Climate and river conditions probably didn't change much in the Ozarks between the last ice age and the coming of European settlement. The lower sections of many Ozark streams are slow, have "always" been slow. They have also been warmer and more fertile. So, no matter whether it is the lower Meramec, Gasconade, or Big, or the lower Black or White, the lower sections of many streams have always been good spotted bass habitat. And, as I tried to point out in my dissertation on connections and barriers, the lower Meramec and Gasconade HAVE had connections of a sort to places where spotted bass live. So...if the spotted bass could have reached the lower Meramec sometime in the past since the last ice age, they probably would have about as quickly as they reached the streams of SW MO, and if they had reached the lower Meramec and Gasconade back then, they would have thrived there. There had to have been some sort of barrier to their spread into the northern Ozark streams, and I'm not the only one to suggest it was the extreme silt load of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, due to the geology of much of the land the upper Missouri drains.

So...I think we have to assume that spotted bass have lived in the southern and southwestern Ozark streams since prehistoric times, and that they did NOT live in the northern Ozark streams until the 1940s at the earliest (and the 1980s for the Meramec and Gasconade). 25 to 65 years is a blink of time in the history of species. And there are certainly obvious as well as not so obvious human-caused reasons for their sudden spread into the northern Ozarks. Even Chief's viewpoint that it might be habitat degradation is a human-caused reason. So I think that you can consider the spotted bass of the southern Ozarks as native under any normal definition, and the spotted bass of the northern Ozarks as either an introduced species (apparently the case in the Osage river system) or an invasive species.

Chief also apparently believes that smallmouth and spotted bass in these streams will "naturally" reach an equilibrium based upon the habitat available for each. Chief, I'm not sure yet of your point about otters, given that I still think it's an entirely different proposition when one species directly competes with another, instead of preying on the other. If otters reach equilibrium with smallmouth, it means otters and smallmouth both maintain viable populations. "Equilibrium" in the case of spots vs. smallies can and does mean plenty of spots and very few smallmouth in these streams. I will agree that eventually equilibrium might mean something like Shoal Creek in SW MO, where the spots and smallies coexist with significant numbers of each. But compared to the way things WERE on my home stream, Big River, that is no bargain.

Which brings me to what I think Chief's main point might be...that spotted bass deserve the same protections as smallmouth, and why I think that any equilibrium which leaves the smallmouth population of the northern Ozark streams greatly reduced from what it was before spots arrived is a disaster. When MDC first started their Master Angler Awards program and started keeping records of how many MAA smallmouth came from each stream, the Meramec, Big, and Gasconade were the top three streams EVERY YEAR...until the spotted bass appeared in these streams. Before spotted bass, these streams were amazing big smallie producers. I knew a lot less about catching bigger smallies back then, but on the Meramec from 1977 to 1985, I considered the trip a poor one if I didn't catch at least one smallie over 18 inches. I can't remember all that many trips back then when I didn't at least have an encounter with a big smallmouth. On Big River, my home stream, it was much the same. These were not just average smallmouth streams, they were the BEST until spotted bass invaded. Now, they are mostly spotted bass, and the fact is that spotted bass simply don't grow to 18-20 inches in these streams. So a fishery that routinely produced fish of that size no longer does. It isn't a matter strictly of loving smallies more than spots, it's a matter of a fishery for bigger fish declining to the point where the chances of catching a true "trophy" are practically nil...with no improvement in numbers, either.

I could take that a step further...I'm not familiar with a lot of the SW MO streams that harbor significant populations of both smallies and spots, but from reports here and elsewhere and my own limited experience, I don't know of ANY Ozark stream with good numbers of both species that produces a lot of BIG smallies. The St. Francis, the eastern Ozark stream that has thriving populations of both spotted bass and smallmouth, seldom produces smallies over 18 inches. It seems to me that in places where you routinely catch both species, something is limiting the size that smallies can attain or at least the numbers that can attain 18+ inches. Perhaps even in those streams, spotted bass are such good competitors that they relegate the smallies only to areas of the stream where feeding conditions are not as good. If a fish has unfettered access to every part of its home stretch of stream, maybe it can optimize feeding opportunities and grow bigger than if it is limited only to the faster water areas. That's just a guess.

At any rate, I guess in the end Chief and I just have different viewpoints. Knowing what my rivers used to be like and what they are like now, watching the big smallie fishery decline to almost nothing over 250 miles of rivers within 25 years or so, yes, I hate spotted bass in these streams, and I will kill every one I legally can.

[eric1978]

Which brings me to what I think Chief's main point might be...that spotted bass deserve the same protections as smallmouth, and why I think that any equilibrium which leaves the smallmouth population of the northern Ozark streams greatly reduced from what it was before spots arrived is a disaster.

On rivers where Earth decided long ago that spotted bass belonged, I agree with Chief completely (if indeed that was his intended point). They absolutely deserve the same protection as smallmouth. Spots on those streams have every right to be there even if they compete with a species I happen to be partial to.

Even if it's true that spots, in their own native waters, prevent smallmouth from reaching larger sizes, I'm really okay with this, too. Would I like the smallmouth to be bigger and more numerous? Of course. But it doesn't really bother me because it's the way it's supposed to be. Man had nothing to do with making smallmouth smaller on average in streams where spots are native. The planet did that on its own.

I have to go a step further and say that, if the tables were turned, and the smallies were invasive and the spots were native, I would begrudgingly take the same position that the invasive species needs to go. I have to admit that I would probably preach about how the smallies don't belong there and must be removed and then secretly release all the smallmouth back into the stream, but the point is that I would concede that it is not the natural order of things and therefore is in need of correction. So what I'm trying to say is that, yes, I do have an alterior motive for getting rid of spots. I'm a smallmouth angler. They are my gamefish of choice. But that doesn't change the fact that, smallmouth or no smallmouth, spotted bass simply were not meant to exist on the Meramec system.

Al mentioned how the time it has taken for spotted bass to invade the habitat in question and negatively impact those ecosystems is no more than a blink in the grand scale of the biological history of a species. A million years from now, when humans are long gone, we also will have been just a blink in the timeline of life on Earth. But the impact of our existence will be perpetually realized through "the butterfly effect" of evolution. Some species we already or will have annihilated. Some species we created through interbreeding. Some species we relocated for agricultural purposes. We have changed the trajectory of floral and faunal evolution forever. And when we're all dead and gone, that won't really matter. The planet will go on, new species will emerge; others will continue to go extinct. On a long enough timeline, our impact on the planet is really not that important. The dinosaurs were wiped out without any help from man, but from a giant hunk of matter from space. It is estimated that 99.9% of all species that ever lived on the planet are extinct, and we had nothing to do with the vast majority of those species.

But I personally believe, I guess because of some innate philosophical mechanism, that places as special as the Rockies or the Smokies or the Ozarks should be handled with kid gloves and aggressively protected. It's just not in me to shrug my shoulders and say, "yeah, we're screwing this place up, but so what?" There's very little pristine wilderness left in the world, and especially in America. You may think I'm some wacky liberal tree-hugger. But I have exotic hardwood floors. I drive a gas-guzzling pick-up. It's a socially acceptable way to live to consume and be wasteful, and I'm not about to move to some commune to live in a grass hut and eat bark off of trees just to make a point. But I do think it's our moral obligation, while we're here for our moment in the sun on this incredible rock hurling through space, to leave it, or at least what's left of it, as original as we found it. And that includes something so seemingly insignificant as protecting a single species of fish on a single river system on a single river-carved plateau, alterior motive or not.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Here is the point I am trying to make: Neither Kentucky bass nor Smallmouth bass are native to the the waters of Missouri. Per say. It is my belief that Browns entered the waters from the Ohio river system at least a couple hundred years ago. I am more inclined to say it was much earlier than that. Like say probably a few thousand years at least. You can argue with me about that but you can't argue with science. Everything I have been able to read on the subject from those that have dedicated their lives and made their living from studying early history of fish, seems to suggest just that.

So, will Kentucky's destroy the smallmouth fishing of those river systems that we are talking about? No, not in my opinion. Will it be different than from what you were used to? Yes to say the least. Personally I like fishing a stream with diveristy.

Al suggested that a stream with nothing but smallmouth will produce bigger numbers of bigger smallmouth. I can say with all honesty that I can take you to a few streams that are at least 90 to 95 percent brownies. I can also honestly say that to catch a 15 incher from those waters is not an easy feat. Sure you will catch the dickens out of 8 to 12 inchers but you will have a tough time one bigger. Are they in there? Sure, but in very small numbers.

I can also take you to streams with a variety of black bass. You won't catch 50 brownies a day, but the ones you do catch, most of them will be in the 12 to 15 inch range. The majority of the bass of all kinds seem to be larger. Now I am not saying that everything is bigger but, as I think back on trips of yesteryear, it does seem that way.

Al, your point about the MDC Master Angler Award is well taken. I am not sure though how many people know of the program or participate. I know of it but have yet to take advantage of it. That is one reason I am not sure that would be a good barometer to gauge by.

I guess though maybe in the end we all should just carry a box cutter with us and we can each determine what species we want and what ones we don't.

[eric1978]

Here is the point I am trying to make: Neither Kentucky bass nor Smallmouth bass are native to the the waters of Missouri. Per say. It is my belief that Browns entered the waters from the Ohio river system at least a couple hundred years ago. I am more inclined to say it was much earlier than that. Like say probably a few thousand years at least. You can argue with me about that but you can't argue with science. Everything I have been able to read on the subject from those that have dedicated their lives and made their living from studying early history of fish, seems to suggest just that.

So, will Kentucky's destroy the smallmouth fishing of those river systems that we are talking about? No, not in my opinion. Will it be different than from what you were used to? Yes to say the least. Personally I like fishing a stream with diveristy.

Al suggested that a stream with nothing but smallmouth will produce bigger numbers of bigger smallmouth. I can say with all honesty that I can take you to a few streams that are at least 90 to 95 percent brownies. I can also honestly say that to catch a 15 incher from those waters is not an easy feat. Sure you will catch the dickens out of 8 to 12 inchers but you will have a tough time one bigger. Are they in there? Sure, but in very small numbers.

I can also take you to streams with a variety of black bass. You won't catch 50 brownies a day, but the ones you do catch, most of them will be in the 12 to 15 inch range. The majority of the bass of all kinds seem to be larger. Now I am not saying that everything is bigger but, as I think back on trips of yesteryear, it does seem that way.

Al, your point about the MDC Master Angler Award is well taken. I am not sure though how many people know of the program or participate. I know of it but have yet to take advantage of it. That is one reason I am not sure that would be a good barometer to gauge by.

I guess though maybe in the end we all should just carry a box cutter with us and we can each determine what species we want and what ones we don't.

Chief,

I know I vowed not to tangle with you, but I would really like to know, with all due respect (seriously), how you define native. It's always been my understanding, and I've never heard it considered any other way, that a species is native to a habitat when it either evolved there, or migrated there on its own without any assistance, directly or indirectly, by man.

I don't dispute that smallmouth migrated to Ozark waters via the Ohio river system. I'm simply not familiar with the route they took to get here. I also suppose that they may have migrated here as little as several hundred years ago, although I believe they have been here much, much longer. I'm sure there is scientific evidence available that can estimate the length of time they have been in the region, I just haven't looked it up. The point is, though, that since they migrated here on their own, before man was a factor in this area, they ARE native. Spotted bass, on the other hand, migrated to the Meramec system because of circumstances created by man, therefore they are NOT native. And since they are not native, the impact that they have on the ecosystem is not natural, and therefore should be corrected.

I'm all for the protection of all species of animals, in their appropriate habitat. If there was a way to remove invasive spotted bass and relocate them to their native habitat, that would be great with me. I don't have a problem with the fish because of how they look or smell or taste or whatever. I enjoy catching them like I enjoy catching a rock bass or other small species, as long as I know those fish are supposed to be there and are not thriving only to the detriment of the native species. My problem is that they have moved into a place they weren't meant to be and they are screwing it up.

[Chief Grey Bear]

The Mother Ship is constant change and/or evolution. As was said on another thread of this subject, we appear to be experiencing a warming trend that I believe has precipitated movement by the Kentucky bass into waters that it has not been known to previously inhabit.

We must also remember that the borders of the historical home range of both of these species overlap in our area, so we are going to get movement into new territories. Especially with the warmer winters we have been having late. But warmer winters are not all that is warming the waters. One of the most significant habitat changes to occur is the removing of trees along not just the bigger streams but, mostly the smaller feeder streams. No shade means more heating by the sun. Just a few degrees difference can have a huge change and I think we are seeing that.

And it is not only bass on the move. Birds that have historically been, say, south of the Mason-Dixon line are increasingly being found well north. And some mammals are on the move also. The Armadillo for instance. It's origins are from South/Central American. Do we consider it native to Missouri? I guess we have to. It wasn't transplanted.

So without using a large amount of bandwidth, that is it in a nutshell.