Smallmouth Regs

[Chief Grey Bear]

Something else I have been thinking about is seperating the creel of LM and Spot from the Smallmouth if a slot was implemented. But it would have to be from the bottom. Meaning that one would be allowed to creel 4 smallmouth less than 13 inches in addtion to the total of 6 creeled LM, Spot or any combination of.

Now just think about it a minute before you jump on keyboard and start baning away. Something along these lines may be needed to maximize the management of smallmouth for the greater.

Are we done???? No comment pro or con?????? Al??? eric???? anyone????? Hello????

[eric1978]

Are we done???? No comment pro or con?????? Al??? eric???? anyone????? Hello????

I like a lot of the ideas thus far, but you could probably guess that I think 6 fish per person per day is plenty. Something else that might need to be addressed is culling fish. I could just see someone tossing back a couple half-dead 13 inch smallmouth that have been dragged around on a stringer all day to make room for a couple of 16 inch largemouth. That would be no good either.

[Chief Grey Bear]

That wouldn't happen with if we seperated the creel limits. Smallmouth would have their own creel. Largemouth and Spots would have a combined creel.

[ozark trout fisher]

I'm honestly a bit confused by the recent turn of the tide towards slot limits. Personally, I don't care very much whether our streams are trophy fisheries. I only care that the smallmouth population, given the character of the stream, is about what it should be. Whenever we harvest a smallmouth bass, we are disrupting a careful balance. So I'll ask you, is this about creating a trophy bass fisheries, or protecting the resource? If your goal is to create trophy fisheries despite what the fishery's original character might have been, I want no part of that.

A slot limit, as near as I can tell, would allow the harvest of more fish before they get a chance to breed, not less. This really makes me think that you all are coming at this from a different angle than I am.

The only new regulations I would support would include an increased length limit, a lowered daily bag limit, or both. Personally, I want less smallmouth (of any size)taken out of our streams, not more.

[Outside Bend]

I'm honestly a bit confused by the recent turn of the tide towards slot limits. Personally, I don't care very much whether our streams are trophy fisheries. I only care that the smallmouth population, given the character of the stream, is about what it should be. Whenever we harvest a smallmouth bass, we are disrupting a careful balance. So I'll ask you, is this about creating a trophy bass fisheries, or protecting the resource? If your goal is to create trophy fisheries despite what the fishery's original character might have been, I want no part of that.

A slot limit, as near as I can tell, would allow the harvest of more fish before they get a chance to breed, not less. This really makes me think that you all are coming at this from a different angle than I am.

The only new regulations I would support would include an increased length limit, a lowered daily bag limit, or both. Personally, I want less smallmouth (of any size)taken out of our streams, not more.

Your handle is "Ozark Trout Fisher," and you're worried about preserving a fisheries' historic/natural character?

Nothing personal, it just seems like there's an awful lot of irony in that.

Most Ozark streams will never be what they were "originally." It's unlikely they'll even be very similar to what they once were. There's been to many changes to aquatic habitat (eg gravel vs. bedrock), hydrology (lower water table, change in water flow due to impoundments), and land use (conversion of forest to pasture, change in forest types). Largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass and other species have been introduced to streams they were never native to, and different stocks of smallmouth have been stocked on top of each other, polluting gene pools which were adapted to specific Ozark streams. Fish composition in many streams has shifted from suckers, catfish, and others to black bass (they receive more protection).

It's no longer a pristine system, and to me expecting it to return to something "natural," is a pipe dream. To me, humans are just as much a part of the equation now as anything, and if the fishery can be managed to make the greatest amount of people happy (without compromising the resource), I think that's the way it ought to be managed.

[Al Agnew]

Who knows what "it should be"? Is there a certain biomass of smallmouth that is optimum for the stream? Probably. And I suspect a lot of streams are about where they can reasonably expected to be as far as smallmouth biomass goes. If that's true, then if you increase the number of bigger smallmouth in the population, you decrease the number of smaller ones. I wouldn't want to see a fishery where you catch three or four fish a day and they are all over 18 inches. I'd like to see a fishery where you catch something fairly similar to the numbers you catch now, but with a greater percentage of them larger.

Back when I kept careful records of the fish I caught for the MDC biologists, as I remember at least half and probably considerably more than half were under 12 inches. Maybe 10% were over 14 inches, and maybe 5% were over 17. During warm weather I'd average around 50 a day, which meant that about two of them were over 17 inches. I think a better population structure would be that I'd still catch over 40 on average, but would double or triple those numbers of over 17 inchers.

The way a slot limit should work is that, compared to the current statewide limits, you'd end up with about the same number of fish reaching the lower end of the slot, since fish from 11 to 14 inches would be kept, probably in about equal numbers to the way the 12-14 inchers are now. But once they reached the slot, you'd have a LOT more survive in the years between the time they are 14 inches and the time they are 20 inches. Of course, some would die off naturally, but none would be legally killed. So theoretically, you wouldn't change the numbers of fish caught all that much, but you'd catch a lot more of them in that protected slot. And hopefully more of them over 20 as well.

Chief, I think your latest idea allows too much overall bass harvest, but I can see leaving both largemouth and spots out of the slot limits.

[Guest]

deleted

[Wayne SW/MO]

That wouldn't happen with if we seperated the creel limits. Smallmouth would have their own creel. Largemouth and Spots would have a combined creel.

The problem I see with separation is identification. I'm not convinced that all that many people can tell the difference. A point would be the Goggle Eye and the Ozark bass. A lot of fisherman don't realize they are two different species.

[Trout Commander]

+1

This could be an issue with everyone from kids/first timers, to locals who know the species by a different/wrong name, to weekend warriors that don't have the experience or knowledge to properly identify the fish. This could be a hindrance to the efforts as well as a deterrent to fisherman who might receive a citation even when they thought they were obeying the rules (less people on the rivers may not be a bad thing though ).

[eric1978]

That could certainly be a problem with spots and LM, but there's just no confusing a smallmouth. They're totally distinct looking from the other two, and anyone who couldn't distinguish a SM from the other two probably wouldn't know the regs anyway.