Felt Soled Waders Banned In Mo Trout Waters!

[troutfiend1985]

I think everyone should have to wear these.

lol, that would suck to get waders into.

[Outside Bend]

Show me where I said the White River "caught" didymo. You can't because I didn't, but you almost certainly will try. If you are going to try to tell me I said something, make darn sure it is what I said. For example, when your body is primed for infection, it takes less of the bacteria or virus, whichever it is, to cause a successful infection, correct? This is the same way with the river system and didymo. When water temperatures were higher, as they were pre-dam, the river is almost impervious to a coldwater organism regardless of how much of the substance is placed in the river. If the water temperature had nothing to do with it, why is there no didymo in ANY stretch of river holding predominantly smallmouth? Simple, the conditions are not right.

Drew, I really don't understand why you're so defensive. You never likened didymo on the white to a disease, and I never said you did. I did, I was using the similarities between invasive species and germ theory to demonstrate that your assertion:

In typical OB fashion you pick and choose what to use. What I said was that the White River chain has didymo because the water temperatures, post dam construction, are now conducive to the spread of didymo.

Isn't true. It still isn't true. And while you're right that a compromised immune system can increase the odds of an infection, you don't get the infection because of a compromised immune system. It's not the wound that causes the infection, it's the pathogen. The White River doesn't have didymo because it has dams, the dams just allow the didymo to exist there. The White has didymo because people brought didymo into the system.

It is shady because the state knows they are going to rake in the taxes from everyone who gives a darn buying rubber soled boots rather than nursing their old felts through another year. Don't think that the money had nothing to do with this.

Assertions like these seem pretty libelous, do you have any evidence MDC is acting with any interest other than the protection of our resources? You don't typically spend 4-6+ years obtaining advanced degrees to be paid 55K a year if your primary motivation is money. From most every MDC person I've met and talked with, they're folks absolutely just like us, who grew up fishing and hunting and enjoying our state's wild places, people so passionate about those places and features that they're willing to forgo some pay, some benefits, even some job security, in order to maintain, manage, and protect those resources. They're doing it because they see some genuine value in the work, they're banning felt because they genuinely believe it's a threat, and claiming they're motivated by anything other than a deep passion for Missouri's biological diversity, without any sort of evidence to back up your claim, seems awfully insulting, and disrespectful of the work they do.

[ozark trout fisher]

I think everyone should have to wear these.

I am not certain what the best solution for dealing with the felt ban is. All I am completely sure about is that this is not it.

[Outside Bend]

But banning felt soles impacts everyone, residents and tourists, so your theory on that is out the window.

Didymo affects everyone. Banning felt soles only affects the folks insisting on their right to infect streams with didymo.

The idea of banning them on only the streams that are currently infected makes the most sense. But, if it was the only way to spread the organism, it would be the perfect solution.

We keep going around and around in circles on this JD. It's impractical to ban tourism. It's impractical to monitor every stream in the state that could harbor didymo, much less every stream in every other state and country which could potentially harbor didymo. Even if you could, it's a pretty adaptable organism, and it's already shown an ability to turn up in places we didn't think it could persist. The most effective way of managing it is to keep it from spreading in the first place, and while it's true that more draconian measures could be used to prevent its spread (eliminating boats, fishing gear, etc), those too are impractical. Why not simply take reasonable precautions?

Unfortunately, there are numerous ways to carry it from one place to another. Maybe on the wheels of the stocking trucks as they move from stream to stream while doing the fish stocking. How about the boats, rafts, tanks, nets, and trailers that Fish and Game uses to stock, they could be a possible transmission mode.

You're right, which is why states have instituted gear disinfection programs. MDC employees have to clean their gear just the same as any angler should be doing. MDC employees have to wear rubber soled boots in order to protect our streams, just like anglers ought to be doing.

[Al Agnew]

Wow, sure is a lot of getting off into peripheral issues here.

1. Didymo might or might not be a problem without the dams. Sure, the dams on the White made it susceptible to being infected with didymo. But most trout streams in MO are not tailwaters, and would be just as cold and just as susceptible to didymo with or without trout in them.

2. Banning felt only in streams already infected won't work for the obvious reason that people coming from out of state could still bring it in...unless you ban felt in every stream across the nation, which would either take more state cooperation than there ever has been before, or a federal ban.

3. Felt is still the MOST likely way to spread it. All the other stuff that has been mentioned here, from neoprene to wet socks to boat trailers, is somewhere less likely in the whole spectrum of risk.

4. I've fished in streams with didymo in Montana. The infestation varies from year to year and season to season. When it's bad, though, it is NOT pleasant to fish in it. The Boulder River had a bad infestation several years ago, downstream from a certain access point, which is obviously where it was introduced by a wading angler. The river below got to where it looked like the whole bottom was so festooned with toilet paper that a college fraternity party had gone down the whole river tepeeing it. Except toilet paper would be flimsier. You couldn't cast without snagging a big wad of the stuff, and it was difficult to clean off your flies. In other words, fishing was practically impossible. Fortunately, the infestation lessened the next year and was nearly gone the year after that. There's no guarantee that would happen everywhere, but apparently it is possible for infestations to go away on their own. But while it's happening, you can just about write off the river for fishing. Trust me, if this happened to upper Current River, a stream about the same size as the Boulder, we'd all be screaming bloody murder for somebody to do something about it. to Fishinwrench and others who think this stuff is just like ordinary algae, you should have seen the Boulder that bad year. It was enough to make you sick, and it was NOTHING like the kind of algal blooms we see in Missouri.

[joeD]

There is a reason why the Missouri state animal is a mule.

Also, we are the Show-Me state. We were the gateway to the west at one point in time. Adventurous people came through St. Louis on their way to make a new life "out west." The people who stayed behind became Missourians. Resistant to change, afraid of the unknown, wary of outsiders, suspicious of government, insular in our provincial thinking.

Same as it ever was.

[fishinwrench]

There is a reason why the Missouri state animal is a mule.

Also, we are the Show-Me state. We were the gateway to the west at one point in time. Adventurous people came through St. Louis on their way to make a new life "out west." The people who stayed behind became Missourians. Resistant to change, afraid of the unknown, wary of outsiders, suspicious of government, insular in our provincial thinking.

Same as it ever was.

LMAO. good stuff, Joe

I admitted early in this debate that I had never stepped in or even seen a didymo bloom, so my input is nothing more than me venting. I'm just going by what I notice, such as.... almost 10 years ago everyone was up in arms because a didymo bloom hit the White below BS, we went down there afterwards expecting to see this terrible snot everywhere, and didn't notice anything close to what the guys on Wilsons forum were describing. And although its been 3 years since I was last down there I still have friends that go routinely and they always come home talking about how awesome it was, complete with pics of big browns ect.

So to me it is like a story of a haunted house, I've heard a thousand ghost stories but still haven't heard of a single person being HURT or killed by a ghost..... So I am skeptical as to why everyone is scared of them.

Same deal...Guy comes back from Arkansas and says OMG the didymo is just awful, what a shame the White is gonna die, and oh by the way check out the big browns we caught ripping streamers !

[jdmidwest]

There is a reason why the Missouri state animal is a mule.

Also, we are the Show-Me state. We were the gateway to the west at one point in time. Adventurous people came through St. Louis on their way to make a new life "out west." The people who stayed behind became Missourians. Resistant to change, afraid of the unknown, wary of outsiders, suspicious of government, insular in our provincial thinking.

Same as it ever was.

Thanks for the compliment. Look at California now, sure would not want to be there....

[FishinCricket]

There is a reason why the Missouri state animal is a mule.

Also, we are the Show-Me state. We were the gateway to the west at one point in time. Adventurous people came through St. Louis on their way to make a new life "out west." The people who stayed behind became Missourians. Resistant to change, afraid of the unknown, wary of outsiders, suspicious of government, insular in our provincial thinking.

Same as it ever was.

Post of the friggin year, man.

[ozark trout fisher]

Post of the friggin year, man.

I second that.