God Bless The Kentucky Bass

[Chief Grey Bear]

The lower Meramec is a pretty large system. And as with other factors- your 40 years of observtions in spots native range may not translate once they're established in new watersheds. It could well be apples and oranges.

It could. But it is most likely Jonathan's and Red Delicious.

I don't. The guy who wrote the book on the state's fishes does, though. It's in Pflieger's Fishes of Missouri.

And he stated Spots have 4 times the egg production of the same size smallmouth??

I said a spot can produce 40,000 eggs. I said 10 inch spot will produce more eggs than a 10 inch smallmouth. I never said a 10-inch spot can produce 40,000 eggs.

No you didn't but that was the illusion you attempted to create.

But I don't want to bicker about how many eggs there are in a bass tummy. My point was simply that a lot of spotted bass' life history traits lend itself well to outcompeting smallies. We shouldn't be too surprised, or too dismissive, when we hear folks (MDC included) talking about substantial declines in smallmouth numbers in the lower Meramec.

Outcompeting in waters more favorable to spots as stated here?? Agreed. I think the jury is still out as you reach the upper parts. And again I am not disputing there are declines. But being from Missouri, I would like to see some research data that collaborates those numbers.

In terms of habitat, probably. But there'll be differences in water quality and nutrient loads, different species and abundance of predators and prey, different parasites, and diseases, etc. As dissected as the Ozark geography is, there's a lot of variability between watersheds- what is the case in one may not be so in the other.

Apparently not enough.

I understand the data was collected by watershed, but I don't see anywhere they say endangered/threaten status is determined on a watershed-by-watershed level. If it is, I'd guess that even though some reaches of the lower Meramec are heavily infested with spots, when taken at the scale of the entire watershed the decline may not be enough to generate concern.

Did you really just write that??

[Chief Grey Bear]

Actually, the decline in the Meramec system HAS generated a lot of concern, hence the 12 fish limit and no length limit on spots, and the extension of the 1 fish, 15 inch limit on smallmouths that is now on nearly all of Big River.

As Chief pointed out, in stream systems where they are native, the spots and smallmouth tend to separate by habitat, with smallmouth in the faster, clearer upper portions and spots in the slower, murkier lower portions. But that isn't always the case even in the streams where they are native. And it certainly isn't always true in the northern Ozark streams they have invaded.

While the spots in the Meramec itself thin out to near insignificance above Meramec State Park, you will catch them all the way up above Maramec Spring. You will also catch them in Huzzah and Courtois, which are about as clear and fast as any smallmouth streams in the Ozarks. And the two major tributaries, Big and Bourbeuse, are now spotted bass water all the way to their headwaters. In the Gasconade River system, they are the dominant bass species in the lower 75 miles or so, common up to the mouth of the Big Piney, and you'll generally catch a few on any given day on upstream for many miles. They are also in the lower portions of the Big and Little Piney. You have to go pretty far upstream on Tavern Creek and Maries River to get out of spot water these days. And on the small streams running directly into the Mississippi, like Joachim Creek and Saline Creeek, you'll basically find them anywhere as far up as the Mississippi backs water during huge floods, and that can be 30 or more miles up from the river. I once had hopes that the upper portions of Big River would prove inhospitable to them, because the river above St. Francois State Park is generally pretty clear and reasonably fast, but that has not proven to be the case.

To be honest, I don't think anybody knows all the population dynamics between smallies and spots, because it varies so much by stream. Take, for instance, the difference between the Castor River, native spotted bass water, and its largest tributary the Whitewater River. The Castor is exceptionally clear and reasonably fast until it gets to the vicinity of the 34 Highway Bridge, and then it slows considerably and begins to get murky. There are very few spots above that bridge, but within just a few miles below it they become the dominant species and smallmouth almost disappear. But on the Whitewater, a clear, fast stream in its upper reaches, slight less clear and fast in the middle, and slow and murky in the lower portions, the spots outnumber smallmouth all the way up to the far upper section. The biologists have speculated that spotted bass don't do well in water with a gradient of more than 3.5 feet per mile. Yet the upper St. Francis River, which averages 10 feet per mile or more and has sections dropping 20 feet per mile, is full of spotted bass. They don't do well in heavily spring fed water for the most part--they are almost non-existent in the North Fork above the lake--but they are pretty common in the somewhat less spring fed but still cool Bryant Creek. It seems to be some combination of cooler summer water temperatures, gradient, and water clarity, that discourages them, but it doesn't take all three. They can do well in clear water if it's not too cold. They can do well in faster water if it's not too clear and cool.

And they absolutely use the exact same habitat as smallmouth in many streams. You'll catch them in exactly the spots you catch smallies on the rivers of the Meramec Basin, as well as in the St. Francis and Whitewater.

That mirrors my thoughts and experiences exactly.

Along with the spots, other species have also invaded your river systems. And some of those are bottom feeders. Your thoughts on their contribution to the brownie decline??

[drew03cmc]

The bottom feeders do indeed eat and prefer crayfish, the smallmouth's favorite delicacy.

[Chief Grey Bear]

They don't mind eggs either.

[Al Agnew]

Exactly which bottom feeders are you talking about that weren't there already before the spotted bass arrived? And haven't been found in streams where the smallmouth are doing just fine?

You can list as many possible reasons as you want for smallmouth decline in the parts of the streams where spotted bass have supplanted them to a great extent. The problem with each and every one of them either that they aren't a factor in some of the stream sections where the spots are doing so, like jetboat wakes and jetboat fishing pressure, or they are also a factor in the parts of the streams where the smallmouth are doing just fine because the spotted bass aren't there. How many times do we have to note that the smallmouth in the Meramec Basin are doing best in the parts of the streams where the spots haven't reached or aren't thriving, and the more spotted bass, the fewer smallmouth? We may not know for sure WHY the spotted bass have been so bad for smallies in the Meramec river system, but nobody who knows these streams, including the biologists who are "responsible" for them, denies that the spots HAVE been terrible for smallmouth.

As far as I've been able to tell, smallies do just fine in among the bottom feeders, whether they be native suckers and such, or introduced species. The jury is still out on the "new" carp species, which aren't bottom feeders but are dangerous due to the competition with plankton eating critters that form the base of the food chain.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I don't know Al. The finger has been pointed at so many things it is hard to keep up.

Meat eaters

Gravity

Live baiters

Easterners

Giggers

Herons

Poachers

Chicken guts

Trot Lines

Spotted bass

Jets boats

Sun spots

Moon waves

Republicans

Obamacare

Armadillos

Mitch

Site fisherman

Nest fisherman

kids

Otters

Non MSA members

[Justin Spencer]

Milli Vanilli even blamed it on the rain.

[Al Agnew]

Chief, too bad all those other things aren't wiping out the spotted bass. Especially Mitch

[Chief Grey Bear]

Ha! I hear he has a soft spot for them.

[Flysmallie]

I hear bull sharks love spots. Maybe we can get some of those in there. Cuts down on the party floaters too.