One More Poll On Smallmouth Management Areas

[Gary Lange]

What about this Global Warming thing. Is it reasonable to surmise that the rivers and streams that now have Smallmouths in abundance with fewer Spotted Bass will become warmer and give the Spots more range. In other words will Global Warming if it really exists warm our rivers and streams making them unsuitable for cold water loving Smallmouths? If this does happen will the Spots take over this warmer water and push the Smallmouths further North?

[ozark trout fisher]

What about this Global Warming thing. Is it reasonable to surmise that the rivers and streams that now have Smallmouths in abundance with fewer Spotted Bass will become warmer and give the Spots more range. In other words will Global Warming if it really exists warm our rivers and streams making them unsuitable for cold water loving Smallmouths? If this does happen will the Spots take over this warmer water and push the Smallmouths further North?

I believe that its very possible that global warming could in the future cause a change in species composition, if it hasn't already. Of the three black bass species, smallmouth prefer the coolest water, so it seems that the warmer the water becomes, the larger the higher the chance that former smallmouth water is taken over by spotted or largemouth bass. I fear that it could end up pushing smallmouth bass closer to the major springs that feed north flowing Ozark streams, and it may totally cause the smallmouth bass populations in rivers that are not heavily spring-fed (Bourbeuse, Big) to become totally extinct in less time than we would like to think. I don't think that was the cause of the spotted bass migration in the 1980s, but it probably helped them to survive and spawn in water that they normally could not have survived in. The Bourbeuse, the Big, and the Meramec below the Bourbeuse River has always been spotted bass habitat, and climate change probably had nothing to do with the spotted bass migration there. It may,however, have allowed the bass to migrate further up the rivers than they previously could have.

[Gary Lange]

It is something to think about anyway. I remember reading some reports about the Smallmouth population taking over on Kentucky Lake. This is interesting if true because for years it was a well know Largemouth Res. and the influx of Smallmouth or expansion of there range could only mean that water is getting colder or that they are being pushed out of other habitat and taking over the gravel points and sections of this well known lake.

[Wayne SW/MO]

It is something to think about anyway. I remember reading some reports about the Smallmouth population taking over on Kentucky Lake. This is interesting if true because for years it was a well know Largemouth Res. and the influx of Smallmouth or expansion of there range could only mean that water is getting colder or that they are being pushed out of other habitat and taking over the gravel points and sections of this well known lake.

That seems to be a common occurrence in older deep lakes and the deeper ends of those not so deep. The reason I've always heard was that it was a product of bottom change. When wave action removes soil from areas and deposits it in the deepest parts of the lake it leaves a more smallie friendly environment.

I think any degradation of smallie waters can probably be correlated with the increase in human habitation, rather than warming. I suspect that the drop in the water table has a larger impact on temps. Deforestation doesn't seem to be as bad in Missouri as it is in some states and that helps the water temps in smaller streams. There's also the fact that any increase in solids will raise the temps and many waters simply aren't as clear, year round, as they were..

[Al Agnew]

Wayne, I too would think that there were surely times when the Missouri wasn't dumping enough silt to make the Mississippi a barrier. But the fact remains that I KNOW there were no spotted bass in the Meramec system within my lifetime until the 1980s. I know, from personal experience, that they first showed up in the creeks flowing into the Mississippi between the Missouri River and Cape Girardeau in the 1970s and 80s...they weren't there before. I fished all those waters enough during those years to know that was the case to my own satisfaction. SOMETHING was keeping them from getting there before then. Maybe there's an alternate explanation. Water chemistry, water temperature during the times when it was less silty, who knows?

Global warming certainly has the potential of greatly altering the population dynamics in Ozark streams. Consider this...the temperature of springs always stays very close to the yearly average temperature of the area where the springs are. The average temperature in the Missouri Ozarks, winter to summer, is around 56-57 degrees, and most Ozark springs are that same temperature when they come out of the ground. A rise of a few degrees in average temperature would mean the springs also get a few degrees warmer. Not only smallmouth, but trout could be affected by that alone. But the real danger, I think, is in changing weather patterns associated with global warming. More rain. Less rain. Hotter summers. Maybe even colder winters AND hotter summers. We'll just have to wait and see if it happens and what it will mean, because I don't see us doing much about it until it's too late.

[eric1978]

What about this Global Warming thing. Is it reasonable to surmise that the rivers and streams that now have Smallmouths in abundance with fewer Spotted Bass will become warmer and give the Spots more range. In other words will Global Warming if it really exists warm our rivers and streams making them unsuitable for cold water loving Smallmouths? If this does happen will the Spots take over this warmer water and push the Smallmouths further North?

Raw scientific data bores the hell out of me, so I'm bad at regurgitating facts. But I think I remember that the scientists have established the average temperature has risen something like 1 degree in something like the last hundred years. That sounds insignificant when you look at the miniscule rise in temps in itself, but when you look at the big picture of the effects of that temperature increase, it's pretty unsettling.

I don't personally think that we are going to see in our lifetimes, and hopefully not our kids, or ever for that matter, a rise in temperature that is very significant in actual terms of temperature. What I mean by that is, we may see in fifty years or so that scientists are now saying the average temperature has risen by 2 degrees over the last 150 years instead of 1 degree over the last 100. So my opinion is that temperature in itself is not going to be a major factor in changing the ecological makeup of most streams, especially those heavily fed by springs.

But as Al said, it really worries me what that small spike in temps does to the planet on a systemic level...as he mentioned, changes in weather patterns: hotter, colder, wetter, drier, windier, hurricanier , whatever. And maybe the thing that worries me most and is the greatest potential threat to all river species (or really just all species, including humans in the long run), is the fact that the polar ice caps are melting, and that raises the sea level. That water has to go somewhere, and eventually it will be backing up into smaller and smaller tributaries, and flooding more areas depending on sea level. I don't care to use the brain energy to speculate on what kinds of changes that would cause, and frankly, I don't even want to think about it because, again, as Al said, we're not going to do anything about it, so whatever happens, happens.

I think any degradation of smallie waters can probably be correlated with the increase in human habitation, rather than warming.

So basically, I agree with this comment of Wayne's. As of yet, I really don't see the tiny spike in temperature effecting the streams all that much, but it's the other effects like flooding and drought that worry me more than the actual temps. And like Wayne said, we have bigger problems with direct human habitat destruction at the moment.

Global warming certainly has the potential of greatly altering the population dynamics in Ozark streams. Consider this...the temperature of springs always stays very close to the yearly average temperature of the area where the springs are. The average temperature in the Missouri Ozarks, winter to summer, is around 56-57 degrees, and most Ozark springs are that same temperature when they come out of the ground. A rise of a few degrees in average temperature would mean the springs also get a few degrees warmer.

Al, you really think the atmospheric temperature would change the temp of the aquifers? I figured that they would pretty much stay constant regardless of air temp.

[Al Agnew]

Eric, I think I'm right in saying that the temperature of springwater is pretty close to equal to the temperature of a given region averaged out over the whole year. Springs in Florida come out of the ground at 70 some odd degrees, which I think is what the average temp of mid-Florida is. Of course, you have springs in some parts of the country that come out of thermal areas and are warmer than the average temperature, but I don't know of any that are colder than the average temperature, unless they come from very shallow sources and vary with the weather.