One More Poll On Smallmouth Management Areas

[drew03cmc]

Drew, not much to add to Fishgypsy's response to your spotted bass post, but maybe if the rivers in question were your home waters and you'd SEEN excellent fishing for more big smallmouth than anywhere else in Missouri disappear, replaced by myriads of 10 inch spotted bass, you'd be a little more upset about it.

Al, simply put, my point is that there is not much that can be done to change it, so either fish other waters that have been sheltered from the onslaught of spotted bass or become more accepting of what mother nature has thrown you and enjoy another black bass species in your streams. If you can think of any way short of a fish kill on the rivers to rid them of spots, let the MDC know and see what they can do.

Fishgypsy- There is little that can be done about invasive species (those not native to the continent in question) under most circumstances. The spotted bass may have used man made features to migrate to these streams, but they were not placed there by the hand of man. Asian carp, on the other hand, were. Brown trout were too. If a species finds acceptable habitat in its new home streams, they can, and often do, become prolific in these locations. A case in point, there are Asian Carp in the Kansas River. They were not historically there, but they are there and they are thriving, growing to trophy sizes. In fact, it has become embraced by a small group of fishermen here, and is enjoyed as a trophy fishery. I am not denying the negative impacts that spotted bass are having on fisheries, however, they have gotten there, gotten established, and, in the eyes of fishermen, taken over. The waterways are forever changed due to the influx of spots on the fisheries and we can either fight nature on this one or enjoy having another game fish species to catch. I, for one, am all for catching a black bass slam on any Ozark stream.

Wayne SW/MO- You speak of having a population of smallmouth bass in Grand Lake due to floods on the southwest Missouri smallmouth creeks, and that is all fine and dandy, but not the way that works. There are few to no smallmouth in Grand Lake due to genetics. The Neosho Smallmouth is not a lake dwelling species, and as such, will move upstream out of the lake into the creeks and rivers where they are native and designed to live and thrive. If you doubt me, read this article about the ODW wanting to stock Tennessee smallmouth into Grand Lake and why they haven't done it yet.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmas...ving_smallmouth

[eric1978]

Al, simply put, my point is that there is not much that can be done to change it, so either fish other waters that have been sheltered from the onslaught of spotted bass or become more accepting of what mother nature has thrown you and enjoy another black bass species in your streams. If you can think of any way short of a fish kill on the rivers to rid them of spots, let the MDC know and see what they can do.

Hey Pat, where are you with that picture of the dead horse when I need you?

Drew...MOTHER NATURE DIDN'T DO IT!!!! We did, therefore it's our responsibility to do what we can to fix it, period. I guess the Exxon-Valdez oil spill wasn't our problem either since it was Mother Nature that put that reef in its way, huh?

Although it could never eliminate the problem, an SMA could help rivers like the Bourbeuse and the middle and mid-lower Meramec, along with the entire Big River (which had its SMA extended...go figure) by giving the smallmouth just a little bit more leverage in their battle. Like you, I don't see the spotted bass problem being solved, but we could tip the scales a bit by changing regulations.

If it was up to me, I'd end one of the urban stocking programs and reallocate those funds to a team of MDC employees who would spend every Monday through Friday of their lives shocking stretches of the Meramec Basin and removing every spot they located. For the price of what it costs to stock one lake at Busch, I'm sure you could pay for one electro-shocking device, one jonboat and at least a few months of a biologist's salary. In fact, I know the perfect guy to do it...How about the agent that sits at lake 21 every time I fish there and reads a magazine in his truck for hours on end without getting out to check a license? How's that? Or I guess you'd be against that too for some reason...can't wait to hear it.

Wouldn't you rather do something than nothing? Apathy helps zero.

[Phil Lilley]

Actually, MDC could kill the river and start over. They do it in other states. Wyoming killed off a section of a river this year to rid the river of a non-native species of trout so that they could restock the river with the native species. I know the biologist that carried out the deed. He introduced a chemical at one point in the river, then added the neutralizer at the ending point which rendered the poison harmless. Didn't harm the insects, I don't think. Have to do some research later today if I get time.

[Gavin]

Think your talking about Rotenone....I'm not sure that would be a good way to go...to many miles of river to cover on the Meramec Drainage..Main stem, Bourbuese, Big, Mineral Fork, hundreds of little creeks.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Wayne SW/MO- You speak of having a population of smallmouth bass in Grand Lake due to floods on the southwest Missouri smallmouth creeks, and that is all fine and dandy, but not the way that works. There are few to no smallmouth in Grand Lake due to genetics. The Neosho Smallmouth is not a lake dwelling species, and as such, will move upstream out of the lake into the creeks and rivers where they are native and designed to live and thrive. If you doubt me, read this article about the ODW wanting to stock Tennessee smallmouth into Grand Lake and why they haven't done it yet.

I don't believe they leave Al, but I have to believe some end up there looking for soft water when the rivers blows out and then make there way back to water they prefer.. I saw fish redistributed year after year on the John Day. When you had a couple of years of good spawn and a mild spring every hole would be well stocked with dinks. It would be rare for the river to manage two springs without a major flood, and when that happened the more narrow holes in the straight part of the river would return to a normal mix, while deeper holes created at bends would seemingly increase the numbers of small fish. I always assumed that the smaller fish got second choice and ended up in the broad eddy's produced at bends.

The was a good article a couple of decades ago in the local magazine that you did a lot of art work for, sorry the name escapes me, that chronicled a scuba diver's smallmouth observations in what must have been Swan or Beaver creek. He claimed that he tracked schools of smallies into Bull Shoals during the winter where they remained close the creeks mouth, and then returned to the creeks in the early spring.

[Gavin]

I dont think that floods affect adult smallmouth much though. Many of them seem to be homebodies. Caught the same fish off the same log twice this year, two months apart and we had high water in between....Pretty easy to ID it because it had distinct scar on its side. I think they all move around a bit, especially the small ones. But I think the bigger fish find a spot they like and stick near it for a period of time, maybe a season, maybe longer.

I'm sure there are no absolutes...Fish just want food, shelter, and sometimes they want a place to spawn. If they dont have to move to get it what they want, they will stay put. If not, they move. Cheers.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I think you're right Gavin, the better fish get first choice to sheltered waters and the dinks are forced to go looking.

[fishgypsy]

There is little that can be done about invasive species (those not native to the continent in question) under most circumstances. The spotted bass may have used man made features to migrate to these streams, but they were not placed there by the hand of man. Asian carp, on the other hand, were. Brown trout were too. If a species finds acceptable habitat in its new home streams, they can, and often do, become prolific in these locations. A case in point, there are Asian Carp in the Kansas River. They were not historically there, but they are there and they are thriving, growing to trophy sizes. In fact, it has become embraced by a small group of fishermen here, and is enjoyed as a trophy fishery. I am not denying the negative impacts that spotted bass are having on fisheries, however, they have gotten there, gotten established, and, in the eyes of fishermen, taken over. The waterways are forever changed due to the influx of spots on the fisheries and we can either fight nature on this one or enjoy having another game fish species to catch. I, for one, am all for catching a black bass slam on any Ozark stream.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmas...ving_smallmouth

Invasive species don't have to be from another continent in order to be considered invasive. The rusty crayfish, for example, is native to the Ohio River basin. But its establishment in Wisconsin, outside its native range led to severe ecosystem destruction and, in some instances, collapse of sportfisheries. An example closer to home- the white river crayfish, which is native to the bootheel, has become established at Four Rivers CA in western Missouri and Swan Lake NWR in northwest Missouri likely through bait-bucket introductions. Established outside it's native range, it's become invasive and replaced the native crayfish species.

The same is true for spotted bass- they're no more native to the Meramec and Gasconade river systems than asian carp or brown trout are native to the continent. They never naturally occurred there- only after man's impacts on the ecosystem were they able to establish themselves. They've caused significant ecological shifts- in sections of those rivers, they're the primary black bass biomass. They hybridize with native species. They flood the population, and have the tendency to overpopulate. They are, in fact, an invasive species in those systems.

Will it be possible to eliminate spotted bass completely from those river systems? Probably not. Gavin brought up rotenone, which would work, but isn't selective (kills all fish species, and in some of those river systems there's species of conservation concern), it's expensive, and it's pretty unpopular with the general public. Folks up in Illinois just got a chewing for using it to prevent asian carp from moving into the Great Lakes. The most viable solution, as I said, is fishing the population of spotted bass down, as we've done with other commercial and sportfish species. Like the conservation orders used to manage snow geese populations, liberal spotted bass creel limits would hopefully increase predation on that species, while at the same time (hopefully) limiting harvest pressure on the smallmouth bass.

Not to hijack the thread, but I'm trying to make a point- the asian carp you mention growing to trophy sizes are doing so at the expense of the native fisheries- they outcompete paddlefish, buffalo, suckers, and other native planktivores for food. They outcompete gizzard shad, leading to declines in populations of black bass, white bass, sauger, walleye, blue and flathead catfish, and other sportfish. Is that too a natural situation? Should people interested in pursuing those fish species sit back and watch their populations crash instead of doing whatever they can to minimize the ecological damage caused by the invasive species?

And if you're interested in catching a black bass grand slam on Ozark streams, their are plenty of naturally occurring spotted bass populations in the south-flowing streams- the St. Francis, Current and Jacks Fork, James River, etc. Some of them even grow to a fairly decent size, my friend caught a 17 inch spot in the St. Francis some years ago. Smallies and spots co-evolved in these systems, they're ecologically separated by habitat and they don't interbreed. Since smallies and spots did not co-evolve in the north flowing streams, there's no mechanism to keep them from interbreeding.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The same is true for spotted bass- they're no more native to the Meramec and Gasconade river systems than asian carp or brown trout are native to the continent. They never naturally occurred there-

I don't think that can be said with any certainty, they are native to the big rivers. I don't know that you can call them invasive given the fact that the weather has had much to do with an extension of their range, and we don't know if its temporary, a cycle, or permanent.

As far Asian carp go we can at least hope they don't do well in still water, or our clear streams.

[fishgypsy]

I don't think that can be said with any certainty, they are native to the big rivers. I don't know that you can call them invasive given the fact that the weather has had much to do with an extension of their range, and we don't know if its temporary, a cycle, or permanent.

According to Bill Pflieger in The Fishes of Missouri:

"Presence of the spotted bass in the Missour River system seems to be the result of introduction into the Osage drainage at a relatively recent date. This introduction is undocumented but occurred prior to 1940. By 1940, the spotted bass was well established in the upper Osage system, but it did not invade the Moreau River, next principal tributary of the Missouri River upstream from the Osage River, until the late 1950's. In the Moreau, it hybridized extensively with a native population of smallmouth bass, and hybrids between the two species are occasionally encountered in other streams where spotted bass are not native."

He goes on to say the first spotted bass was collected from the Gasconade in 1974 (though there are anecdotal reports of anglers catching them there as early as 1961), collected from the mouth of the Missouri in 1969, collected from the Meramec in the early 1980's, and from the Big River in 1986.

So I suppose I was wrong, people in fact did directly introduce spotted bass into the Missouri River drainage. They were also apparently stocked in the Loutre, Grand, Chariton, Lamine, and Perche creek, all in the MO Drainage. And though I couldn't prove it without refined genetic analyses, it seems plausible the fish could move down the Missouri River mainstem from their point of origin, colonizing rivers and streams as they went, in the intervening 40 years since they were initially stocked.

And from the MDC website- http://www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/stlouis/fish/fishing/bass/

"In the Meramec basin, spotted bass are slow-growing, non-natives that may compete with native largemouth and smallmouth bass for food and space. "

And as far as them (spotted bass) being invasives, they've been cited as such by agencies in Colorado, Iowa, and North and South Carolina.