Stream Smallmouth Management

[fishgypsy]

I've resisted chiming in here because I think many of the arguments are moot points. Especially the west side-east side one which is completely empty. And I glanced at the white paper, but like someone else said it seems "phoned in".

It seems to me that MO smallmouth bass, in streams anyway, are beyond the scope of MDC "management" in any sense of the word.

1) Way too many miles of streams to watch,

2) far too few of agents to patrol those many miles,

3) the reality is that SMB are lower on the popularity totem pole compared to other species - trout for instance or largemouth or crappie or walleye or white bass and so why would MDC devote much if anything to it, and they are relatively hearty anyway, and

4) how do you manage it EVEN IF everything is perfect?? I've heard Kevin Meneau talk about what a crapshoot a spawn can be. High water during a critical time can wipe out a year class. And given that MDC doesn't stock and cannot with any degree of success, stock smallmouth, how and what exactly are you managing?

If "management" means only putting up signposts declaring them to be a Smallmouth Management Areas, then whoop-tee-do! I'm not sure you're improving anything other than increasing the budget allocated to signs and thereby giving vandals more firewood or nice bright targets to shoot at.

I love smallmouth fishin in creeks and in that silly poll I voted for pure C & R reg change in all of the states streams, but the realist in me knows that probably wouldn't do much to improve anything in the short-term, at least not without better enforcement to go with it. I support the efforts of MSA and increasing AWARENESS of this important gamefish. They have their work cut out for them. End of the day . . . white papers are just papers, and whether you think MDC is to blame or is impeding progress . . . I just can't get behind either of those mules.

Coldwaterfisher brings up some interesting points, and I figured this was easier than hijacking the thread on winning people over to MSA.

There are a ton of miles of streams for agents to watch, especially when saddled with other duties (enforcement of other game and police laws). More "boots on the ground," as well as higher visibility of agents, would help enforcement of current regs as well as benefit smallmouth fisheries. You'll get no argument from me on those points.

I'll have to look it up, but I believe smallmouth were rated pretty high by Missouri anglers in the Statewide Angler Survey several years back, if I remember correctly only trout and catfish were more sought after. And it's true, there's lots of issues you can't manage, like weather patterns and water levels.

As for the difficulty and expense of maintaining smallmouth fisheries, I simply don't think it's a valid reason to give up on them. The walleye fisheries in the Current, Black, and St. Francis watersheds is heavily stocked, regulated, and maintained in hopes of returning them to their former abundance. Aside from the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the state's paddlefish fisheries in Table Rock, Lake of the Ozarks, and Truman reservoirs are almost entirely artificial- hundreds of thousands of fish reared in hatcheries every year to satisfy anglers. You meantioned trout, and I don't want to open a whole huge can of worms on that topic- but their presence in the state is completely artificial, browns are maintained almost solely through artificial propogation, and the fish per mile counts in the few wild rainbow fisheries we have in the Missouri Ozarks pales in comparison to the natural productivity of many black bass streams.

The nice thing about smallmouth, about many fish and game species, is that they don't need optimal conditions to live, even to thrive. If they did require those conditions, they'd have died out millenia ago. Smallmouth have experienced floods and droughts before, they've experienced otters and ospreys and herons and all sorts of other critters. And they've survived. In places, they've thrived. They're resilient little bastards. Smallmouth don't need protection from floods. They can cope with floods. In my opinion, what they need is protection from overharvest and from threats to the places they swim. Lucky for us, those are things we can manage.

[Al Agnew]

Good points.

Look, I don't entirely buy the whole spawning success is a crap shoot thing. If that was so, there would be a lot of year classes missing from Ozark smallmouth populations, since the likelihood of a flood sometime during the spawning season is pretty high every year. But I've never noticed a major lack of one size of smallies in the streams I fish. Back when I was keeping very careful records and taking scale samples, I noticed a pretty consistent size distribution each year. In other words, by the time the fish got old enough to be big enough for me to catch them--about 7-8 inches--I caught 7-12 inchers at a pretty consistent rate each year with no size in that range missing or scarce. Had there been a really bad year, somewhere in that size range there would have been few fish caught--like few 8-10 inchers (three year old fish). Smallmouth spawning isn't an all or nothing thing. While it seems that the bulk of spawning happens during a period of just a couple of weeks each year, depending upon weather and water conditions, some spawning occurs earlier and later, and so there is almost always an ample number of little fish produced on our streams. Some years it WILL be a lot fewer, but on the good years the numbers of fry produced are far MORE than is necessary to maintain the population.

One thing that the White Paper and the Summary of the Special Management Areas does show is that regulations DO have an effect on smallmouth populations. The Special Management Area regs did result in a significant increase in 12-15 inch fish, 15 plus inch fish, and 18 plus inch fish. And also a decrease in growth rates, which shows that apparently there was a general increase in the numbers of adult fish. So while we all decry the lack of enforcement, at least SOME anglers changed their habits in response to the regulations, enough anglers to give the regs some effectiveness.

I don't blame MDC, or think they are impeding progress...or at least they haven't to this point. Like I've said before, I've been supportive of their efforts, and I realize that they have other pressures and considerations that might make them slower to make changes than we would like. But I do think the White Paper's conclusions are disappointing, and I don't want to settle for what we have. I do not expect them to change everything overnight, I just want them to be receptive to new ideas and to keep working to improve things. What started this whole ball rolling was the perception from the White Paper that the studies are done, the stream sections evaluated, and what we have now is what we'll have for the foreseeable future.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I pretty much agree with what you say gypsy, although I'm not sure the Jack Salmon runs were that much better than now or how much they are worth overall. The paddlefish program is a mitigation for wiping out the spawning grounds and severely deteriorating their feeding grounds. The trout for the most part are put where our natives don't go, at least not in large numbers. The only class that's left as far as special requirements is the smallmouth, at least as a game fish. It also seems to be a fish that resists mans help in anything artificial. There's little doubt that while it might be tough, its very particular and simply will not live anywhere like its sunfish cousins.

I have yet to see an believable argument that the needs anymore than protection form habitat destruction, a competitive invasion, and over harvesting. Biologist say that unlike the LM's and spots, they will spawn again if their first try is unsuccessful. I suppose if this is true it would account for yearly classes being present in spite of floods. We all know there will never be enough enforcement to adequately enforce rule in remote places, places that make up most of Missouri. The thing is these rules and regulations do have a positive effect.

I still contend the MDC should hope they don't have to explain why a SMA didn't work, rather than not take a chance at all. I think the White Paper should have been an explanation of the criteria used to create an SMA on virtually every stream. They could have even used it to prepare the groundwork for a failure explanation later, who cares, at least they would have tried. They could use SMA's on many streams to experiment with various regulations to find those that work best on like streams.

They would have a program for all streams with native smallmouth populations, not just a few chosen because they feel they guarantee success. There is no gamble in the attempt.