One More Poll On Smallmouth Management Areas

[ozark trout fisher]

Just a couple of notes.

The MDC didn't do anything from 1930 to 1937.

The spotted bass was not reconized as a speperate species until 1927.

The only known report of a stocking of spotted bass in a trib of the Missouri River that I have seen, was in the Sac River around 1940.

LOZ was completed in 1931. (I think I got that right)

Somehow spotted bass got through the dam at LOZ in numbers great enough to continue on their rampage for the Meremac like Gangis Khan.

Theories are just that, theories. Anything other than that is fact.

I'm pretty sure spotted bass were stocked in the Loutre River as well, but I don't know it as a fact. Does anyone know for sure?

[Al Agnew]

Quoting from "The Fishes of Missouri", by William L. Pflieger...

"Spotted bass have been stocked by the Department of Conservation in the Lamine, Grand, Chariton, Perche, Loutre, and Salt stream systems since 1962. Reproduction has occurred in all of these and the spotted bass is well established in the Lamine, Perche, and Loutre stream systems."

The book was written in 1975.

Somewhere in my poorly filed articles I've saved from all the magazines I get, I have an article from the Conservationist magazine that touts the stocking of spotted bass in those streams. In retrospect, it may have been one of the stupider things MDC ever did, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.

If anybody needs a geography lesson, the Loutre River runs into the Missouri from the north side, just a few miles downstream from the mouth of the Gasconade on the south side. And by the way, the Loutre did have some smallmouth in it. Perche Creek enters the Missouri from the north, well upstream of the Osage, and the Lamine enters the Missouri from the south, farther upstream yet.

[eric1978]

Theories are just that, theories. Anything other than that is fact.

Well, that's not exactly true. In the realm of science, theories are often fact, but they remain named a "theory" until it is generally accepted by all the slower members of our species. Take evolution, for example. It's called a theory, but it is a fact...some people just haven't caught up yet.

But I realize this is just semantics and I get your overall point.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I just don't see the evidence that spotted bass are native to the north-flowing Ozark streams, that they were ever native to north-flowing Ozark streams,

Native as in long term residents, I agree. I don't have my The Fishes of Missouri handy, but it seems to me the author mentions Spotted bass in the Mississippi in the STL area. I have to remain a skeptic on some things because my experience dictates it. All too often a reason for some catastrophe is given and assumed only to later be found at fault.

When it comes to Spots a.k.a Kentuckies what ever the theory or facts are, little can be done about it short of what Al A pushes. Taking as many out as possible to avoid hybrids and competition is likely the bottom line.

AS to whether they were there, in and out of the river? First off you can't depend on the natives to make a distinction between LM and Kentuckies, they didn't really care. As far as the MDC not finding them? I'm not privy to the exact times that they took samples, but there is some information that it wasn't often, and even if it did it has no bearing on the situation historically, its not even a hundred years!

I don't know the answer and the theory I quoted isn't my own, nor do I know it to be true, but I do believe the Spots are natives even if they aren't wanted where they are presently.

Al didn't the Salt have a small population of smallmouth?

[ozark trout fisher]

.

Al didn't the Salt have a small population of smallmouth?

The Salt still has a smallmouth population.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Quoting from "The Fishes of Missouri", by William L. Pflieger...

"Spotted bass have been stocked by the Department of Conservation in the Lamine, Grand, Chariton, Perche, Loutre, and Salt stream systems since 1962. Reproduction has occurred in all of these and the spotted bass is well established in the Lamine, Perche, and Loutre stream systems."

Well see, there ya go. I am surpised you have never mentioned this before.

How often were the stockings? How many were stocked?

Thanks for the geography lesson too. I don't get out of Jasper County much.

To quote A. J. McClane:

"The geography of the smallmouth bass can be traced by the growth of the American railroad. Until 1869, its range was largely confined to the Lake Ontario and Ohio River drainage systems, but as the wood-burning diamond stackers rolled south and west, the bass became a commuter. The original brood of the Potomac basin, for example, came from the Ohio River by riding over the Alleghenies on the Baltimore and Ohio in buckets hanging in the water tender. This resulted in some widely scattered plantings, and eventually the smallmouth arrived in California from Lake Ontario via New York."

Makes you wonder if any of that happened in Missouri?

[Chief Grey Bear]

The Salt still has a smallmouth population.

Just about all of the waterways flowing east into the Mississippi river, north of the Missouri river confluence, have a brownie population.

[Bill B.]

Just about all of the waterways flowing east into the Mississippi river, north of the Missouri river confluence, have a brownie population.

So do at least some of the waterways flowing into the Missouri in the central part of the state. Perche Creek and some of its tributaries definitely have smallmouths, because I've caught them. So does the Lamine River, or so I've read.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Oh sure Bill. There are many. But since the Salt was specifically mentioned, I was just letting it be known about the area that was mentioned.

There are far more waterways in Missouri with brownies than there are Spots. But you see where we are.

[fishgypsy]

Just a couple of notes.

The MDC didn't do anything from 1930 to 1937.

The spotted bass was not reconized as a speperate species until 1927.

The only known report of a stocking of spotted bass in a trib of the Missouri River that I have seen, was in the Sac River around 1940.

LOZ was completed in 1931. (I think I got that right)

Somehow spotted bass got through the dam at LOZ in numbers great enough to continue on their rampage for the Meremac like Gangis Khan.

Theories are just that, theories. Anything other than that is fact.

Chief, I'd be interested in seeing where you got your information. From the MDC's Meramec River Biotic Assessment(http://www.mdc.mo.gov/fish/watershed/meramec/biotic/).

"Since 1930, MDC fish biologists have collected a diverse assemblage of 125 fish species from the Meramec River basin"

And again:

"Research personnel of the Missouri Department of Conservation made the following collections:

5 collections in 1930's"

If this is an error, I suggest you contact MDC and make them aware they didn't do anything in the 1930's.

I'm not sure where the year 1927 came for the first description of spotted bass. I've seen regarding spotted bass taxonomy indicates it was first described by Rafinesque in 1819. Here's the citation I found, but I can't speak (or read) French:

Rafinesque, CS. 1819 Prodrome de 70 nouveaux genres d' animaux découverts dans 1'intérieur des Etas-Unis d' Amérique durant 1'année 1818. J. Physique, Paris, 88:419-429.