One More Poll On Smallmouth Management Areas

[Gary Lange]

I was under the impression that the Ice age ended about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and at that time it formed the Great Lakes and many other smaller bodies of water. I would imagine that the great rivers of North America formed at that time also such as the Mississippi and Missouri, the Illinois and its tribs also.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The beginning of the Little Ice Age seems to be in question, but most apparently agree it ended about 1850, a few climatologist believe we still are in recovery, but that's not pertinent to this discussion. The reason I brought it up was because smallies can tolerate colder water than their cousins, so I suppose its possible that they migrated during this time. I would assume that the rivers were much clearer than, especially during the winter because runoff would have been at a minimum. Its a thought.

[Gary Lange]

Sounds plausible to me. They had to get here somehow and I don't see them getting a ride on the Railroad. I thought somebody said we were in a Global Warming Period caused by to many cattle or to many people or something.

I know Smallmouths were in Lake Michigan for quite some time but it seems they have really come a long ways since the Zebra Mussles cleared up the water. Chicago area has gotten some 5-6 pounders lately. Lower Lake Michigan is coming alive.

[Al Agnew]

I love how we get off on tangents that still have something to do with the main subject. The whole ice age thing got me curious so I did a few minutes of research and some thinking...

There were four major ice ages in the last 2 or 3 million years in North America. The ice sheets only reached northern Missouri in the first two, the Nebraskan between 1.7 and 2 million years ago, and the Kansan, a quarter million years later. So Missouri was last directly scoured by the ice about 1.4 to 1.5 million years ago. And of course, it was only north Missouri that got covered by the ice; the ice sheets never reached the Ozarks.

The last two ice ages were the Illinoian, from 125,000 to 500,000 years ago, and the Wisconsinan, which ended about 11,000 years ago. The Illinoian didn't cover any part of Missouri but covered most of Illinois, including the part of the state that borders the present day Mississippi from St. Louis to the Ohio River. The Wisconsinan only got as far as Wisconsin and Minnesota.

So the Ozarks was never altered by the ice or in any major way by the meltwater when the ice ages ended, but the big rivers were definitely formed and altered by meltwater. However, the present courses of the Missouri and Mississippi throughout Missouri were shaped in the first two ice ages, especially in the second, the Kansan, which covered all of north Missouri down to pretty close to the present day channel of the Missouri River. So the present day drainage patterns of the big rivers were formed well over a million years ago.

We don't know when smallmouth bass in their present form (or spotted bass, for that matter) first appeared. But we can assume the species existed prior to the last ice age, the Wisconsinan, which was what formed the lake country of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the present day Great Lakes. So we know that during that last ice age, smallmouth bass could not live in the upper Mississippi drainage or the Great Lakes. However, we can also assume that they existed in that country prior to that last ice age. As the climate cooled and the ice built up during that last ice age, smallmouth bass, like lots of species of animals and plants, were forced to retreat southward. The Ozarks was probably a sanctuary for smallmouth bass during the advance of the ice sheets, a place where they could still live. I suppose it's possible that the springs that have fed Ozark streams since long before that last ice age may have kept the Ozark rivers warm enough in the frigid winters to allow the smallies to do okay in the region.

Spotted bass, on the other hand, are a more southern species. They probably never lived north of the Ozarks region. And we also know that they don't thrive even today in the more heavily spring-fed stretches of the Ozark streams. The chances are that if they ever lived within the Ozarks before the last ice age, they were forced to retreat from the part of the region that was closest to the ice sheets and coldest. So we can picture the Ozarks 10,000 years ago as having smallmouth bass throughout, which survived there during the last ice age, while if spotted bass were present at all they were only present in the southern Ozarks, perhaps only in tributaries of the Arkansas River. From there or from farther south and east, they may have spread into and throughout the southern Ozarks once the climate warmed. So the chances are that smallies were in much of the Ozarks LONG before spotted bass either got there or returned.

After doing my reading, I still believe that spotted bass couldn't colonize the northern Ozarks because of the silt-laden Missouri River and the almost equally silt-filled Mississippi between St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio River, which was a barrier to their spread north of the Ohio-Mississippi confluence. However, after my bit of research, I am altering a few ideas I wrote before. The Mississippi and Missouri may not have been a travel corridor for smallmouth at the end of the last ice age, either. They were probably too cold, too big, and too filled with glacial silt to allow either smallies or spots to use them. The smallmouth had to have already been in the Ozarks prior to that last ice age. However, there had to have been conditions suitable for smallies to move into and recolonize the newly formed Great Lakes and their tributaries, as well as the upper Mississippi and the Minnesota lakes, very soon after that last ice age, while there were still plenty of connections to regions farther south where they had ridden out the ice age.

[Al Agnew]

I do have a couple of things for you to consider Al, just things that raise questions that I have no opinion on. The first would be the affect the Little Ice Age might have had on any migrations. I believe it ended sometime in the mid 1800's, but I don't know the affect it had on SO MO. The second question is how hard is it to document the number of fish by species in a river with the volume of the Mississippi? How accurate would it be if the numbers were a small percentage, but significant in numbers?

In the thread above, I said that I think the smallies were throughout the Ozarks prior to the last ice age, so they probably didn't need the Little Ice Age to move into the region--they were already there.

As to your second question, if we're just talking about spotted bass, I think that it would be difficult to get a real good handle on their numbers but pretty simple to at least find enough of them to know they were there or not. I don't think spotted bass ever spend much time in the main channel of the Mississippi. They probably use it only as a travel route in certain water conditions. Where they have been found in the Mississippi is always at the mouths of tributary streams, and I suspect that's probably the only places they spend a lot of time. So if you collect fish at the mouths of tributaries (something that would be a lot easier to do than to collect out in the main channel), you're probably going to find some spotted bass if they are anywhere around. As near as I can tell from the locations of collections on the maps, every tributary mouth of any size has been a collection point at one time or another.

Just from my own experience, I think spotted bass get the urge to migrate during the high water of spring on the smaller rivers, but I don't know whether that's true or not on the big rivers. I'd think that spring floods on these rivers might be too cold to give them that urge. Or maybe not. For what it's worth, however, I discovered something about them during the great Mississippi flood of 1993. The creeks near where I live that flow directly into the Mississippi were flowing at normal levels but were backed up for miles from the high water on the big river. Saline Creek was a backwater for over 30 miles. Establishment Creek was backed up for about 15 miles. I paddled and fished a few times in the backwater during the flood on both creeks, and discovered that in just a quarter mile stretch at the extreme end of the backwaters, where current began to appear, the spotted bass were in huge schools just hanging around. Apparently they had moved up with the rising waters until they had found current and reasonably clear water again, and there they congregated. It seems like maybe every spotted bass that lived in the long stretch of creek that was now under backwaters had moved upstream as far as they could go. When the water went back down, some of these spotted bass stayed, though certainly not all of them.

I don't know how this relates to movements within the big rivers, or even to movements during normal flooding on the Ozark streams. But it was very interesting.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Spotted bass, on the other hand, are a more southern species. They probably never lived north of the Ozarks region. And we also know that they don't thrive even today in the more heavily spring-fed stretches of the Ozark streams. The chances are that if they ever lived within the Ozarks before the last ice age, they were forced to retreat from the part of the region that was closest to the ice sheets and coldest. So we can picture the Ozarks 10,000 years ago as having smallmouth bass throughout, which survived there during the last ice age, while if spotted bass were present at all they were only present in the southern Ozarks, perhaps only in tributaries of the Arkansas River. From there or from farther south and east, they may have spread into and throughout the southern Ozarks once the climate warmed. So the chances are that smallies were in much of the Ozarks LONG before spotted bass either got there or returned.

Now this is a much more interesting conversation, in my book, than what somebody wants to enforce on everyone else.

I totally agree that the Spot is a more southern, warmer water that smallmouth, species. I have always thought that it is quite possible that in between the last two ice ages, Spotted bass had a range that extended further north. Not by a lot but, at least into southern Iowa and the southern half of Illinois.

I think the tempatures of that time could have supported them. And then as you stated, they retreated or possible became extinct in some of their range. In doing some unrelated research the other day, I discovered that the Beautiful Armadillo( that is the name, I didn't name it) was native to North America. For unknown reasons it became extinct about 11,000 years ago. With that, it could be possible the same happened to the Spot with the coming of the last Ice Age, or Glacial Age as we are supposed to call it. Ice Age works for me though as that is what we were taught in school.

Now another thought for you is that it is possible that smallmouth made their move up the Missouri as one of the first two Ice ages were makeing their way toward the south. Myself I believe it most likely happened during the Kansan. I understand and agree with you that a lot of silt was moving down the Missouri. But as the northern plains became coverered with ice, less and less silt was being washed into the wateways and thus I think the Missouri cleared enough for them to move.

Just a thought I have always had. And it may totally off base.

[Al Agnew]

Chief, I suspect you're right about when the smallmouth moved up the Missouri, always assuming it was somewhere near its present position during the period between the first two ice ages. There would probably have been a period of time when the climate was getting colder and locking up a lot of country to the north in ice, and maybe covering the area where the Missouri is now draining a lot of silt up in Montana and the Dakotas. The Missouri would have been flowing a lot less volume AND silt. The smallmouth can survive just fine in latitudes as far north as central Ontario, so the cooler climate at that point wouldn't have stopped their spread. I'd say it's very likely that's how it happened.

Of course, there is an alternative explanation...what if the Ozarks was the ORIGINAL place where smallmouth evolved? The Ozarks has been more or less like it is now for at least 2 to 6 million years, plenty of time for a species to evolve. Instead of being a sanctuary during ice ages, what if the Ozarks was the original stronghold of smallmouth bass, from where they spread up the Ohio, up the Mississippi, and finally into the Great Lakes? In my experience as both an angler who has fished for them in a number of places across the country and an artist who has looked at them closely, the smallies from the Great Lakes and Minnesota lake country are a bit different in appearance from the smallies you catch in the streams and lakes that eventually flow into the Ohio River. Ozark smallies more closely resemble the Ohio/Tennessee River strain, other than what seems to be less capability to attain really large sizes. So maybe that would argue against the Ozarks being the birthplace of smallmouth bass, since if they spread out from the Ozarks, they would have gotten into the Ohio River system much earlier than in the Great Lakes and north country, so the Ohio/Tennessee river strain would have had more time to evolve away from the original. But it's a nice thought anyway.

As for spotted bass, you'd think there would be nothing keeping them from being able to survive as far north as Iowa, but if my theory of the silt in the Mississippi being a barrier to their spread, it would just depend upon whether there was a period of time when it was warm enough to allow them to spread northward AND flows on the ancestral Missouri were such that it wasn't dumping too much silt.

[eric1978]

Of course, there is an alternative explanation...what if the Ozarks was the ORIGINAL place where smallmouth evolved? The Ozarks has been more or less like it is now for at least 2 to 6 million years, plenty of time for a species to evolve. Instead of being a sanctuary during ice ages, what if the Ozarks was the original stronghold of smallmouth bass, from where they spread up the Ohio, up the Mississippi, and finally into the Great Lakes? In my experience as both an angler who has fished for them in a number of places across the country and an artist who has looked at them closely, the smallies from the Great Lakes and Minnesota lake country are a bit different in appearance from the smallies you catch in the streams and lakes that eventually flow into the Ohio River. Ozark smallies more closely resemble the Ohio/Tennessee River strain, other than what seems to be less capability to attain really large sizes. So maybe that would argue against the Ozarks being the birthplace of smallmouth bass, since if they spread out from the Ozarks, they would have gotten into the Ohio River system much earlier than in the Great Lakes and north country, so the Ohio/Tennessee river strain would have had more time to evolve away from the original. But it's a nice thought anyway.

I like that theory, too, for no other reason than my affection for the Ozarks and the fact that I think that smallmouth and the Ozarks are like peas and carrots.

But I don't think the fact that Ozarks smallies are closer in appearance to OH/TN smallies than they are nothern smallies argues against your theory. Evolution is a result of animals adapting to their surroundings, and the fact that the OH/TN habitat is closer to Ozark habitat than northern habitat, to me, would be more of an evolutionary consideration than just simply TIME. If there is no need for an animal to evolve, it won't.

Look at an animal like the alligator. They've been exactly the same for a VERY long time. If we had a million years to do an evolutionary study, and put some gators in some habitat that is similar, but not identical to, the Everglades in temperature, environment and forage for the full million years, and put another set of gators in a different set of conditions that was slightly cooler or warmer, or drier or wetter, or with a different type or amount of forage, for only a half million years, my guess is that you would see changes in the latter set much sooner, because they would need to evolve to survive, or at least survive more efficiently...the first set wouldn't change as quickly, or possibly at all because the habitat is similar, even if not identical to their original habitat.

So that's my long way of saying I don't think time is as big a factor in determining an evolutionary path as need to adapt.

[Al Agnew]

Excellent point, Eric!

[Wayne SW/MO]

I was under the impression that a Char was native to Missouri during the Ice Age, but its been some time since I read that so I may not have it in sequence. The reason I brought up the Little Ice Age, not my description, was because it had an affect on water temperatures at a bout the same time the railroad theory evolved. Colder temperatures bring clearer water, but also larger floods and the smallies could well have used the period to make a move.

When it comes to the big rivers and their silt load I have some reservations with that being a permanent barrier. The silt load, or I would assume, lessened somewhat during drought years, possibly to the point that spots "inched" upriver. There's also the fact that by stocking areas such as the Osage basin provides more fish for displacement. We always take the stance that fish don't move during floods, but common sense tells us that's not true of the Sunfish family. The fact that they will not fight the current for any amount of time means that some will move with it looking for unoccupied refuge. The fact that they have no homing instincts has to lead to some finding alternative waters where they stay. I think Al's reference to the schools of spots that occupied the lower stretches of rivers, in the area of the worst flooding, probably could have been a result of this. They could have found large backwaters being fed by two sources, one of which was acceptable. What negates the possibility that this population stayed in the area and periodically some move up river from time to time. Fish will move to avoid conditions that are intolerable, but not from conditions that are mildly uncomfortable because they are used to those conditions. If they move into a river, such as the Meramec, during a very brief period when conditions are perfect and those conditions change to something less than perfect, they may not leave because its still within the parameters of what they will tolerate daily. The same conditions however might prevent others of their species form following. the result could be a slow increase in their numbers based on a very few who arrive, a few who are spawned, and decreased by a few who leave during certain water conditions with a small net increase that eventually becomes a problem. At least I believe its all a possibility.