Mdc's Smallmouth Management Area Selection

[drew03cmc]

It doesn't take a lot of money to change regulations. Just a bit of guts. I don't know of many good trophy fisheries for any species that don't have restrictive regulations. We need to at least take a good stab at making our streams better before we give up on it. Whether that means a slot limit, catch and release, or a restrictive length limit, I believe regulations can have a major effect. It would be best if it was coupled with habitat improvements (buffer zones, etc) and better enforcement (both of which do cost money), but more restrictive limits are at least a start. It is the easiest, and least costly first step in making our smallmouth streams better. It should not the last step, just a good stepping stone to making things better.

Nope, but it takes a lot of money to enforce the regulations. I have seen people on streams without licenses due to the fact they have never been asked for theirs before. I, have never seen an agent on any stream I was fishing outside of a trout park four years ago. All the regulations in the world do not mean squat to the law abiding outdoorsman. It is not the members of this forum or the weekly fishermen that you have to worry about. It is the Joe Schmoe who goes out meat hunting on a smallmouth stream and comes back with a dozen 9-11" fish. If they are never hassled by an agent, they have no aversion to breaking the law.

For example, in Missouri, you have a rigorous motor vehicle inspection every year, including brakes, tires, windshield, catalytic converter, etc. You have to have a catalytic converter on your car to pass (unless the mechanic is your buddy, another story), but in Kansas, there is no yearly inspection. All they do (assuming the car is from another state) is check the VIN and odometer to match the title. If the car is from Kansas, you do not have to see the DMV, just go to the county treasurer's office and you are set. The point of this is that if you are legally required to run a catalytic converter (you are), but your state does not check for it, do you have an aversion to pulling it off to gain the extra power? Nope. It is like I mentioned above, but in a gearhead, nerd kind of way.

Tom, great post bud.

[fishinwrench]

Drew, The state vehicle inspection centers don't check to see if your car is equipped with seatbelts, and that they are in good working condition, either.

[Chief Grey Bear]

No management was needed back then because there were very few anglers harvesting fish, in comparison with today's numbers. The fish could easily sustain their populations without protection.

You don't seriously believe what you just said?

[eric1978]

You don't seriously believe what you just said?

Yes, I absolutely do. You don't? You really think there were as many anglers fishing our streams pre WW2 as there are now? There weren't, except possibly (on the Meramec, for example) around the area of the Meramec Highlands recreation complex near Kirkwood, which is relatively close to St. Louis city. There weren't hordes of people frequenting the upper stretches back then...most could simply not afford the trip.

I'll throw in your point that there was not as much habitat degradation back then and for the Meramec Basin specifically the spotted bass were not a problem.

Now we have the trifecta and the fish need support. I'm baffled that I have to argue for game fish protection on this site.

[fishgypsy]

Yes, I absolutely do. You don't? You really think there were as many anglers fishing our streams pre WW2 as there are now? There weren't, except possibly (on the Meramec, for example) around the area of the Meramec Highlands recreation complex near Kirkwood, which is relatively close to St. Louis city. There weren't hordes of people frequenting the upper stretches back then...most could simply not afford the trip.

Perhaps fewer anglers, but I seriously doubt they were harvesting fish in fewer numbers compared to today's anglers. My grandfather and all his cousins ran gillnets across the Black River during the Depression- whatever they caught (Catfish, black bass, walleye, suckers- anything) they ate. Complete, indiscriminate killing. With protection a lot of the species recpovered, though, if I'm not mistaken, walleye still aren't as abundant as they were formerly in many streams.

Even if the number of anglers was far less today, if you have a few hundred people taking EVERYTHING from the stream, multiplied by a couple decades- it can surely lead to serious depopulation of a fishery.

As for the habitat degredation, I'd argue it was worse then than it is now. You had near-complete clearing of the forest cover in the ozark highlands. You had open range. You had sand, soil, and gravel washing off the landscape and into the streams. You had the effects of unregulated logging and timber floating on the Current and other rivers. You had dredging for freshwater mussels in order to make buttons. Again, when my grandfather was building his house in 1949, in order to get the aggregate for the basement you went out to the nearest stream with the county road department and got a couple truckloads of gravel out of the creek. You had point source pollution- mine effluents in the Big and Black River drainages, raw sewage in those areas and others. St. Louis used to dump ground (ground-up) garbage directly into the Missouri, Mississippi, and lower Meramec rivers. I see a lot less of those sorts of things happening now. I'm not saying things are perfect, just that things have come a long way.

And I'm not suggesting we don't need to regulate fisheries. Just for different reasons, I suppose.

[eric1978]

Even if the number of anglers was far less today, if you have a few hundred people taking EVERYTHING from the stream, multiplied by a couple decades- it can surely lead to serious depopulation of a fishery.

I would argue that we still have a few hundred people taking everything they catch from a river, more or less depending on which river we're talking about. The question is, though, what do we ask of the rest of the people who either respect laws or behave in a way that is ethically correct regardless of laws.

We can waste our time bickering about when and why habitat degradation took place and the impact it had on fisheries; I do believe that we have seen improvements in the last several decades on most streams. How about we go back to the 1600s? What do you think the smallmouth populations looked like then?

Habitat degradation, water quality, purely environmental influences, etc...they're all parts of a whole when it comes to smallmouth problems...I'm well aware of that. But let's keep that stuff to another thread. This one is about MDC REGULATIONS, and as far as I'm concerned that issue is mutually exclusive to all the other issues. It makes no sense to say, "well, this stream has poor water quality for such and such reasons, so why bother with tighter regulations?" That is backwards logic and is tantamount to throwing in the towel and giving up on a river simply because it's "imperfect." Why don't we just say, then, to give a specific example, "well, the spotted bass are consistently moving upstream into the Meramec and its tributaries, so we might as well just start dumping waste into it." Get what I'm saying?

And to add onto that point in a way that is directly related to the White Paper criteria and elimination of certain streams for consideration based on poor scores on said criteria, what the hell are they doing with an SMA on Big River if unsuitable habitat eliminates a stream from consideration? That river is in terrible shape both in terms of habitat degradation and the spotted bass invasion. Big River scored a 2 for habitat suitability and a total rating of 18, lower than many streams eliminated from consideration, yet they chose to extend the SMA by 95 miles. A little incongruent? Seems so to me.

[fishgypsy]

And to add onto that point in a way that is directly related to the White Paper criteria and elimination of certain streams for consideration based on poor scores on said criteria, what the hell are they doing with an SMA on Big River if unsuitable habitat eliminates a stream from consideration? That river is in terrible shape both in terms of habitat degradation and the spotted bass invasion. Big River scored a 2 for habitat suitability and a total rating of 18, lower than many streams eliminated from consideration, yet they chose to extend the SMA by 95 miles. A little incongruent? Seems so to me.

The Big river has a lot of pluses, though, if you look at it in terms of MDC. It's naturally one of the Ozarks most productive rivers, especially compared to many of the other similarly sized streams (Current, Black, and St. Francis rivers come to mind). Much of it is within a major metropolitan area, and it's accessible by hundreds of thousands of anglers. And frankly, lots of folks at MDC have been catching a lot of flack about the fishery there- that it's living up to its potential. And as far as the habitat issue, I'm guessing a lot of the effects of mine tailings and other mine waste can be cleaned up using federal grants and funds. Other habitat issues could be addressed using federal sportfish funds or other grants. In other words, Big River is a fishery that could, on paper at least, be rehabilitated into a pretty substantial fishery, without a lot of cost on the part of MDC.

And I think if they succeeded, a lot of biologists and higher-ups at MDC, as well as folks in the Conservation Comission and Conservation Federation of Missouri, would see the rehabilitation of the Big River into a premo smallmouth fishery as a jewel in the agency's crown, up there with reintroducing deer and turkeys and all that.

I think that's why Big river gets so much attention.

[eric1978]

I think that's why Big river gets so much attention.

I think I should probably clarify that I am 100% supportive of all Big River improvement projects...I was just trying to point out the inconsistency that some rivers which have better habitat are crossed of the list and others aren't. There is no "perfect" stream, so MDC has a reason to eliminate any of them from consideration for one reason or another under their current rationale.

[fishgypsy]

I wasn't trying to insinuate anything, and I agree that the MDC criteria, and the way streams were picked, seems a bit arbitrary and based as much on politics and demographics as on science and concern for the resource.

[Wayne SW/MO]

7.) Other species- I'm all for maintaining biodiversity, and nongame species are close to my heart. I love snorkeling ozark streams, snapping pictures of all the fish I see. But this one seems a bit arbitrary. First off, if we can't establish an SMA on the Niangua River because of fears of Niangua darters being preyed upon by smallmouth bass..how can we stock brown trout there every year? And how come presence of Niangua darters didn't disqualify Tavern Creek, which is a stronghold for the fish? And what about the Western Fanshell, a state-imperiled freshwater mussel which resides in the Niangua and uses smallmouth bass as a host? If SMA regs were implemented on the Niangua and the darter population began showing declines, would it not be possible to simply rescind the regs? The noodling regs were rescinded early because of fears of damage to the resource, why couldn't the same thing be done in this instance?

This one had me scratching my head also, and I might add the one you missed I believe was that the Osage Fork SMA was nearby. I've fished both quite a bit and while I'm not a biologist, I believe the Niangua to be superior Smallmouth habitat. I suspect that the smallie fish carcasses found in April and early May might be a deterrent, but the fact that Browns mysteriously disappear doesn't stop the stocking of them. It also doesn't help that there isn't more protection for the smallies in Bennett in the winter. They are sitting ducks, literaly, yet there doesn't seem to be any effort to easily pick off violators.