One More Poll On Smallmouth Management Areas

[Al Agnew]

Hey Eric, the yellow grubs are harmless to humans, but like you I find them pretty unappetizing when there are a lot of them. They are actually pretty easy to pick out of the meat with the point of a fillet knife, and given the size of the fillets you usually have from Meramec River system spotted bass, they are all visible even if they are buried in the meat. Only problem comes when there are so many of them that you spend 15 minutes just trying to "de-grub" one fillet. When I bring home spotted bass from Big River, usually I'll end up throwing away about one in six fish because the grubs in that one are just so numerous that it isn't worth it to pick them out.

[fishgypsy]

Hey Eric, the yellow grubs are harmless to humans, but like you I find them pretty unappetizing when there are a lot of them. They are actually pretty easy to pick out of the meat with the point of a fillet knife, and given the size of the fillets you usually have from Meramec River system spotted bass, they are all visible even if they are buried in the meat. Only problem comes when there are so many of them that you spend 15 minutes just trying to "de-grub" one fillet. When I bring home spotted bass from Big River, usually I'll end up throwing away about one in six fish because the grubs in that one are just so numerous that it isn't worth it to pick them out.

I prefer my grubs sauteed with a little olive oil and garlic

Seriously though, I wonder if you could just grind the fillets up and make fish-cakes. I suppose I'll have to try it sometime...

[Wayne SW/MO]

spotted bass clearly were not native to north-flowing Ozark streams, spotted bass were stocked into the Missouri River system, sometimes by public agencies.

If they were native to the Mississippi it would have been hard to keep them out of the Missouri. There is more than one theory about why they are moving farther into smallies native habitat. I think one that can't be dismissed is the one that theroizes that the reduction in spring flow has raised the stream temperatures making them more acceptable to spots and largmouth. The reason given for the lack of largmouth is that they prefer still waters, the spots are a current fish. If this is true then it would be hard to know if they have moved farther upstrem in the past and then retreated.

[eric1978]

Hey Eric, the yellow grubs are harmless to humans, but like you I find them pretty unappetizing when there are a lot of them. They are actually pretty easy to pick out of the meat with the point of a fillet knife, and given the size of the fillets you usually have from Meramec River system spotted bass, they are all visible even if they are buried in the meat. Only problem comes when there are so many of them that you spend 15 minutes just trying to "de-grub" one fillet. When I bring home spotted bass from Big River, usually I'll end up throwing away about one in six fish because the grubs in that one are just so numerous that it isn't worth it to pick them out.

Intellectually I know they won't hurt me, but I just can't bring myself to eat a fillet that had just ONE of those nasty little things in it, picked out or not. I'm not even close to a picky eater, but I gotta draw the line there. Just can't do it.

[fishgypsy]

If they were native to the Mississippi it would have been hard to keep them out of the Missouri. There is more than one theory about why they are moving farther into smallies native habitat. I think one that can't be dismissed is the one that theroizes that the reduction in spring flow has raised the stream temperatures making them more acceptable to spots and largmouth. The reason given for the lack of largmouth is that they prefer still waters, the spots are a current fish. If this is true then it would be hard to know if they have moved farther upstrem in the past and then retreated.

It's an interesting theory, and it may hold water. I've also read that deforestation and destruction of the riparian corridor of many north-flowing Ozark streams has contributed to higher water temperatures than in the past, and subsequently poorer smallmouth bass habitat. Either scenario, though, you're still looking at an artificial situation brought about by people tinkering with the ecosystem.

I'm not a hydrologist, and I can't speak to whether the springs have reduced flow. I have read that the aquifer is dropping in some areas as much as 7 feet a year, and I'm sure that has impacts on spring flow. But if spotted bass invaded because of warmed stream temperatures, then why didn't the population of largemouth bass take off too? They prefer higher water temperatures too, but their population hasn't exploded. True, largemouth do prefer slower water than spots or smallies, but wouldn't a reduced discharge from the springs result in lower current velocities in those streams, thus providing slower water and more habitat for largemouth? And why didn't spotted bass colonize streams during other historic warm-water events, such as the 1930's and 1940's, when tree cover was likely even less in these watersheds, and when we were facing severe drought, so much so the water table dropped (exposing new parts of Meramec Caverns, for example).

[Wayne SW/MO]

then why didn't the population of largemouth bass take off too?

Even if the cfs is less that doesn't necessarily translate into slower currents. In fact it might mean less slack water.

As to the 30's and 40's, what makes you so certain there wasn't some invasion? The reality is that a drought then would not be the same as a drought today when it comes to groundwater. The fact that the aquafier is much lower means that much of the groundwater will pass the shallow areas that feed some springs.

[Al Agnew]

Wayne, the trouble with your theory is that there is no real evidence that conditions in the Meramec River system had deteriorated at the time that spotted bass started to invade. In fact, riparian conditions on the Meramec had been improving for the most part throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. As for spring flows diminishing and warming the water, the lower Meramec and all of Big River and Bourbeuse River are NOT heavily spring fed. In fact, Big and Bourbeuse are two of the least spring fed streams in the Ozarks...one fair sized spring feeds the Bourbeuse, and no good size springs at all on Big River. Like all Ozark streams, there are some small springs up and down the rivers, but nothing significant. The Meramec is a different story, but even on it the spring influence is pretty much nil in the lower reaches except for the volume.

Due to the geology and gradient of these rivers, they have ALWAYS been good spotted bass habitat. The Bourbeuse and Big are low gradient streams, as is the lower Meramec. They are also relatively murky streams during most of the year. In fact, the Bourbeuse and Big are both almost "classic" spotted bass streams, slow, lots of alluvial banks. You could pretty much say the same thing about the lower Gasconade. If spotted bass COULD have reached these streams naturally, they should have done so long ago. So although they are native to many streams that eventually reach the Mississippi, SOMETHING was keeping them out of the north-flowing streams. I doubt that it was simply that they were too far north, since the difference in latitude between Big River and the St. Francis, which is full of native spotted bass, is a matter of a few miles in their upper reaches, and less than 70 miles as the crow flies at most.

As I've written before, my theory is that spotted bass couldn't make it to the Meramec because they would have had to travel a long distance up the Mississippi to get there and the Mississippi, fed by the extremely heavy silt load of the Missouri, simply wasn't usable as a travel corridor until man shortened the route and built the upstream dams on the Missouri that lessened the silt load. And the only other way they could have gotten there was from direct stocking of spotted bass on Missouri River tributaries, giving them a short downstream route to the mouth of the Meramec. Either way, I refuse to believe that CHANGES in habitat in the Meramec and tributaries had anything at all to do with it. Once the spots COULD get there, they did, and found it greatly to their liking. The only reason they weren't there before is because for whatever reason, they could NOT get there in the first place.

My theory DOES postulate the spots getting there on their own once the route was opened by human actions. The alternative theory requires them to come from stocking in nearby streams and then moving in on their own. So in that sense it was a natural occurrence rather than direct human action. But human action made it possible.

[fishgypsy]

As to the 30's and 40's, what makes you so certain there wasn't some invasion?

MDC made 87 fish collections on the Meramec between 1930 and 1977. Untold thousands of anglers fished the Meramec in that same time period. No one reported spotted bass in the system until the early 1980's. If these was a small darter or minnow species, I think you could make a fair argument the species was overlooked. But we're talking about a common, popular, relatively easy-to-catch sportfish species. I simply don't believe spotted bass were able to hide out undetected in these river systems for fifty years, then all of a sudden in the last 20 their population exploded to the point where they're the dominant black bass species.

It's late, and I feel like telling a story:

Two piranhas were found in Lake of the Ozarks this summer, along with a four or five foot long alligator. Now I'm pretty positive piranhas and alligators aren't native to Lake of the Ozarks, but I couldn't tell you with 100% certainty that alligators and piranhas have NEVER swam in Ozark streams.

I can show you evidence which indicates pirahnas and alligators historically weren't present in Lake of the Ozarks as long as records have been kept. I can show you that the piranhas and alligators didn't show up in fish and reptile collections at Lake of the Ozarks until XXXX date, but even that doesn't prove that alligators and piranhas weren't a natural part of the ecosystem. They may have just been overlooked for decades. It's even possible that piranhas and alligators have always been present there, but biologists and anglers haven't encountered them till recently.

Similarly, I can't prove that the presence of piranhas and alligators in Lake of the Ozarks is the result of people mucking with ecosystems. ALthough it seems awfully likely to me someone dumped them in the lake, or thought they'd be fun to catch with a tube jig. But the water in Lake of the Ozarks eventually makes it to the ocean. So does the Amazon. And it's possible that a few piranhas got bored with the Amazon, moved down to the coast, worked their way from estuary to estuary till they go to the Mississippi, ascended that river, then the Missouri, then the Osage, then made it through the turbines and wound up in Lake of the Ozarks. Alligators would've had it easier- there's alligators in Louisiana, so all they would've had to do is climb up the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Osage, then portage around the dam and hop into the lake (though I'm not sure alligators hop, ever). And although it seems like an unlikely scenario to me, I can't rule it out with 100% certainty, so we can't take that possibility off the table.

All of this misses the point though- evidence seems to indicate piranhas and alligators are on the rise in the Ozarks, and we'd better get used to it. No point in trying to postpone the inevitable- for better or for worse, piranhas and alligators are here, and they may be here to stay. I personally can't wait to get my !@%! bit off by one of either species as I wet-wade an Ozark stream. I'd suggest investing in heavier tackle, steel leaders, and chicken carcasses.

Wayne, I'm sure you're a stand-up guy, and I'm not trying to cut you down. 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, that their range expansion into north-flowing Ozark streams is a natural process which hasn't been affected by environmetal/habitat alteration, or that their presence in north-flowing Ozark streams is beneficial to other fish species or the ecosystem as a whole. I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on those questions, no matter how long we chew on it. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Tom

[Chief Grey Bear]

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.

[ness]

Holy crap -- there are piranhas and alligators in LOZ too? The turds were bad enough. I think we need to drain that puppy and start from scratch.

You guys can have your thread back now.