Record

[ollie]

Fish bioligist that I have talked to are in favor of a slot on smallies. The problem I see with that is that the smallies HAVE to be harvested for it to work. Several of the impoundments around SW Mo like the conservation areas have a slot for largemouth, but the majority of people turn back the 11-12" fish cause they want something bigger to fillet. Thus you are left with a whole lot of smaller fish that are competing with others for the food source. Something to do with density per so many or something like that I was told. Dan, when you say that our smallie streams are not overpopulated with smaller smallies, that is where I too got into the arguement with the bioligist. Now I must admit I can catch dinks all day long however! I just know that the slot doesn't work if no one is going to keep the smaller fish. At least with the largemouth that is the case, but I know they also grow faster than the smallie. You know I took the smallie survey several months ago and would like to know how that turned out. Anyone know?

[Dan Kreher]

Fish bioligist that I have talked to are in favor of a slot on smallies. The problem I see with that is that the smallies HAVE to be harvested for it to work. Several of the impoundments around SW Mo like the conservation areas have a slot for largemouth, but the majority of people turn back the 11-12" fish cause they want something bigger to fillet. Thus you are left with a whole lot of smaller fish that are competing with others for the food source. Something to do with density per so many or something like that I was told. Dan, when you say that our smallie streams are not overpopulated with smaller smallies, that is where I too got into the arguement with the bioligist. Now I must admit I can catch dinks all day long however! I just know that the slot doesn't work if no one is going to keep the smaller fish. At least with the largemouth that is the case, but I know they also grow faster than the smallie. You know I took the smallie survey several months ago and would like to know how that turned out. Anyone know?

Again, I'm no fisheries biologist. I'm just echoing what I've read from fisheries reports, smallmouth bass conservation experts and my own observations. The slots you refer to are generally the 12"-15" variety and have been imposed on small lakes and ponds with very limited food supplies inherent with their being closed systems. Natural stream environments are considered open systems, and in areas with decent habitat, boast sufficient food resources for normal stream growth rates. Predators in streams grow much more slowly that their still water counterparts due to more energy being used for survival in a riverine environment which can have low water, high water, fast currents and other issues.

Slots are used in those areas where growth rates slow due to unsustainable high competition for food resources in order to reduce the number of fish to improve growth rates and affect size structure. Folks I've spoken with at the MDC have not noted slot limits as regulations they're considering for improvement in our stream SMB fisheries as they typically do not fit these criteria. There may be some differing schools of thought amongst these biologists but the SMB survey you mentioned did not even mention protected slot limits as a potential regulation for folks to give their opinion of. Sort of reflects the MDC's thinking on this topic perhaps.

Surveys which the MSA conducted with angler groups in years past did indicate good support for protected slot regs if they were shown to be effective in imrpoving average fish sizes and overall fishing quality. Whether they would be as effective as a high MLL / low creel was not the issue.

Regardless, as I noted earlier I would like to have a more structured dialog with say, Spence Turner, retired MDC fisheries guru, and a couple of the current MDC fisheries team to discuss the merits and de-merits of slot limits on our streams. We, as MSA, did not propose such slot regs to MDC Regulations Committee back in 2010 because they differed so much from what the MDC was currently doing in the Special Regs areas. We didn't want to suggest complicating steam SMB management still further. MDC repeatedly has stated they like to keep regulations simple and easy to understand. Not that slots are all that complicated, but . . .

As I understand it, yes, you'd need there to be harvest below the protected slot if indeed a fishery was overpopulated for the avaialble food resources. Otherwise, the slot won't work any differently than a miniumum length limit. High MLLs work very well for fisheries with good habitat = food production such as our streams overall.

As far as catching dinks is concerned, that has been my recent experience all over the place the past two months. Seems the larger fish just ain't taking what I'm throwing.

I will once again state, we don't have too many small SMB in our streams -- rather simply too many of our fish are small cause all the 12"+ fish get taken shortly after reaching legal length under our current maximum sustained yield statewide regulations regime. Would an appropriate protected slot limit improve this situation? Quite possiblly but high MLL would be even better from fisheries mgt perspective.

Awaiting results of MDC SMB tagging study to gauge relative fishing pressure on those streams selected as well as preponderance of catch & release vs. harvesters of those tagged fish. My 15.75" tagged smallie from the North Fork actually made it a full 365 days exactly from the date it was tagged by MDC until I caught it and removed the $25 tag back in early May. Results for first 7 months of that study showed a 40-45% catch rate of those tagged fish which was alarmingly high. Haven't told us what percentage were released vs. kept yet though.

Final SMB survey results also finally due out in late summer. Looking forward to diving into the details of that survey to discern angler preferences, attitudes, etc. Initial results were somewhat enouraging but I withhold judgement until can see data for myself.

[Gavin]

Dan makes a strong case for higher minimum length limits...I'm no biologist, but I'm a pretty good number cruncher...Did a spreadsheet analysis of some of MDC's sampling data on the smallmouth management areas....Its public if you hunt around a bit on MDC's website. Big River and the Meramec had the most sampling data pre-reg, post reg....There was a nice increase in the numbers of fish, and big jump in the numbers of 12-15" bass when the 1>15" length limits were imposed. The 1>15 reg didnt do anything for the number of 18" fish, but those fish are all candidates for the skillet or the taxidermist. I would love to see some numbers from the Jack's Fork & Gasconade Special Management Areas but I cant find anything with hard figures in a publically available document.

[Mitch f]

Dan makes a strong case for higher minimum length limits...I'm no biologist, but I'm a pretty good number cruncher...Did a spreadsheet analysis of some of MDC's sampling data on the smallmouth management areas....Its public if you hunt around a bit on MDC's website. Big River and the Meramec had the most sampling data pre-reg, post reg....There was a nice increase in the numbers of fish, and big jump in the numbers of 12-15" bass when the 1>15" length limits were imposed. The 1>15 reg didnt do anything for the number of 18" fish, but those fish are all candidates for the skillet or the taxidermist. I would love to see some numbers from the Jack's Fork & Gasconade Special Management Areas but I cant find anything with hard figures in a publically available document.

That's funny Gavin, just this morning I was thinking we needed to amass existing data into a database and crunch the numbers, and determine once and for all which would be most favorable,

you just did that!

[Chief Grey Bear]

Dan makes a strong case for higher minimum length limits...I'm no biologist, but I'm a pretty good number cruncher...Did a spreadsheet analysis of some of MDC's sampling data on the smallmouth management areas....Its public if you hunt around a bit on MDC's website. Big River and the Meramec had the most sampling data pre-reg, post reg....There was a nice increase in the numbers of fish, and big jump in the numbers of 12-15" bass when the 1>15" length limits were imposed. The 1>15 reg didnt do anything for the number of 18" fish, but those fish are all candidates for the skillet or the taxidermist. I would love to see some numbers from the Jack's Fork & Gasconade Special Management Areas but I cant find anything with hard figures in a publically available document.

I have that report and some of those tables seem to reflect that the SBBSMA's are possibly detrimental to the smallmouth.

Especially table 3.

[Al Agnew]

The studies showed a slight decrease in the growth rate, an increase in 12-15 inch fish, and not a real significant difference in the numbers of 18 inch plus fish. You also have to realize that on Big River, the whole thing was complicated immensely because when the original regs were implemented that stretch was in the process of being invaded by spotted bass.

I'm no biologist, obviously, either. But I have been observing closely a number of different situations.

Big River--since the entire river below Leadwood Access was put into 1 fish, 15 inch regs for smallies, I have noted very little increase in my catch rate, and very little change in the numbers of 12-15 inch fish. I have, however, noted before that Big River fish tend to be long, lean, big tailed and big headed up in the area affected by lead mine waste. I believe that in this case there are more bass (not just smallies, the spotted bass are still increasing in that area and largemouth are doing well) than there is food. That's a special case because of the mine waste, however.

Meramec River--the Meramec above St. Clair is, in my opinion, a classic case of a smallmouth population that is not up to its carrying capacity. There's plenty of habitat and plenty of food, but not huge numbers of fish. The bigger fish tend to be big bodied and small-headed, meaning they are getting plenty of food.

Jacks Fork--this one, up until last year, seemed to be a good example of a relatively unexploited population. The one fish-18 inch limit, even if not being enforced completely, seemed to mean the JF was not being depleted of fish. Good size structure, plenty of numbers, healthy looking fish. Last year the numbers seemed to be down for some reason.

Crooked Creek--I was struck by the lean, long, exceptionall big tailed fish on CC last week. I'm really wondering, admittedly only from one trip, if there are more fish in CC than is healthy.

Gasconade--this is the one that I really wish we all had a better handle on. The special management area of the Gasconade gets a LOT of pressure. How is the one fish/18 inch limit really affecting it?

Where I'm coming from, in the end, is that I simply want more protection for those fish which have survived to the 14-15 inch mark and have the potential to get big. I'm not a huge fan of the 1 fish/15 inch strategy, because I think it just means a lot of fish are being cropped at 15 inches. The guys who catch and eat and who follow the law are probably able, on most streams, to catch enough of the other bass species to help make a meal, but are never going to turn down a gift 16 inch smallie to supplement their stringer of largemouth and/or spotted bass. Except in a few SWMO streams, a 15 inch smallmouth isn't really all that much of a quality fish. The 18 inch limit is a lot better concept, and I'd like to really know how well it's working.

But I'm beginning to believe, even though Spence has said I'm wrong, that there really CAN be too many small fish for the food supply in some streams. My admittedly limited experience is that there are streams where the numbers are lower but the size structure is better and the fish seem to be better fed, and streams where the numbers are high but the fish look underfed.

And in the end, regulations have to be palatable to most people or they won't work well. As much as I'd dearly LOVE to see a 1 fish, 20 inch limit on the middle Meramec (and I truly believe it would make a difference), the meat fishermen AND the tournament guys would kick and scream. But at least with a slot limit, it wouldn't be a huge difference to the meat fishermen and it would serve to protect a lot more fish that have reached a size where natural mortality isn't a huge factor and thus have the potential to get big.

Dan's point that lower creel limits might spread the harvest around among more anglers and not result in fewer fish actually being harvested is one I never thought of. If there are more legal sized fish in the stream, then the casual angler is presumably more likely to catch a couple of them. So instead of the good angler keeping the limit of 6 and the casual nimrod keeping 0, the good angler would keep the limit of 4 and the nimrod would maybe catch and keep 2, resulting in the same number of fish being kept between the two of them. Hmm...that's worth thinking about. On the other hand, one of Dan's other points is that only 15% or so are over 14 inches (for instance) so a 14-18 slot would only protect 15% of the fish, thus making little difference. But under current regs, even special regs, a large percentage of that 15% are still being harvested at 14 or 15 inches, while the slot would at the very least protect that 15% until they got up to 18 inches (or 20 inches?). If the lower part of the slot being a fewer fish limit does result in less of those under slot fish being harvested, then the best case would be that it results in more than 15% reaching the slot, and even more reaching the upper end of the slot.

Good discussion, Dan.

[exiledguide]

Dan, I believe Dale Hollow was formed by daming the Obey River not the Pidgeon, I might be wrong.

I also don't understand why, if the purpose with limits and regs is to grow larger fish why any fish over the present limits should be legal, if you want big fish why is it legal to keep those fish. I also think that big fish should be released immediately, not after a delay to take photos. I know under the right weather conditions the fish might not be harmed but why take that risk.

[Gavin]

Did the numbers awhile ago Mitch...and they on another computer...Think the spread could use a bit more crunch in the miles sampled, fish per mile area....but it was just for fun...and I made my conclusions. I really do think that we regulate what we catch in this state....Most of my better fish come from special regulation areas. places close to them, or on overlooked waters with difficult access. Will send to those interested.

Chief, I wouldnt rely on those tables...all the data is lumped together and some of the special management areas did allot better than others...and 18" smallmouth bass were rare to begin with..Impiment a reg that increases the number of protected fish in the sub 15" range, and the PSD of 18" fish is bound to decrease. I'd LOVE to see the data on the 18" MLL waters.

.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Chief, I wouldnt rely on those tables...

I figured that would be the route taken. But had the data gone the other way......

[Chief Grey Bear]

The studies showed a slight decrease in the growth rate, an increase in 12-15 inch fish, and not a real significant difference in the numbers of 18 inch plus fish. You also have to realize that on Big River, the whole thing was complicated immensely because when the original regs were implemented that stretch was in the process of being invaded by spotted bass.

Good discussion, Dan.

That is kinda the way I took it also. It appears as if the SBBSMA's is not really helping get to the disired results. So maybe Ozark smallmouth just won't ever achieve what we desire?????