Good Smallmouth Creeks?

[ness]

Nice work Mr. Dallas!

[Wayne SW/MO]

Al I guess my point is that the spots have been around for decades and being wild critters they go where they want too go. One has to ask why now and generally when one ask that question the first question to follow is "What has changed?" and it's no secret that the streams have. The Niangua is a good example for me, or the Thompson to the north, both are almost unrecognizable because of how shallow the have become. We no that the springs are all diminished and the water more shallow in most and that spells warmer water to me. Sure the smallmouth are tough and will stay if they have too. I don't about your experience, but in mine they will put up with cold water before they will water too warm. Of all the sunfish the smallmouth seems the most intolerant of conditions. Lakes are good examples, while spots have pretty much moved to all sections in lake where they exist, smallmouth don't and tend to remain in areas they like.

I think there are probably a lot of micro causes overall that combine with the obvious changes to make the spots move farther upstream. i can't see any reason for a spot to be a competitor to the smallies.

[Outside Bend]

I dunno, it's not as though the Meramec and north-flowing Ozark streams are the only systems in the Ozarks which have undergone landscape alterations. The St. Francis doesn't have a lot of spring influence, there's substantial urbanization in the Farmington area, and it's had to deal with mining issues on some of its tributaries, and there's a big reservoir downstream which could be a huge source population spots could colonize from. Yet we're not seeing the shift from smallmouth to spots that we're seeing in the Meramec and other northern systems.

Similar situation exists with the Black- relatively little spring influence, substantial land degredation, mining, big reservoir full of spots- yet the proportion of smallmouth to spots seems pretty static. And in the James- rapidly urbanizing landscape, warmer stream temperatures, but it doesn't seem to be altering the proportion of smallmouths to spots.

It's probably true that landscape changes and habitat alterations have made some north-flowing streams more amenable to spots. And I agree that, in terms of conservation, we really need to address stream habitat issues. But if that were the primary mechanism, wouldn't similar habitat alterations to southern streams result in similar shifts in the number of smallmouth versus spots?

[Al Agnew]

Al I guess my point is that the spots have been around for decades and being wild critters they go where they want too go. One has to ask why now and generally when one ask that question the first question to follow is "What has changed?" and it's no secret that the streams have. The Niangua is a good example for me, or the Thompson to the north, both are almost unrecognizable because of how shallow the have become. We no that the springs are all diminished and the water more shallow in most and that spells warmer water to me. Sure the smallmouth are tough and will stay if they have too. I don't about your experience, but in mine they will put up with cold water before they will water too warm. Of all the sunfish the smallmouth seems the most intolerant of conditions. Lakes are good examples, while spots have pretty much moved to all sections in lake where they exist, smallmouth don't and tend to remain in areas they like.

I think there are probably a lot of micro causes overall that combine with the obvious changes to make the spots move farther upstream. i can't see any reason for a spot to be a competitor to the smallies.

Wayne, I think I answered the "why now", and it simply doesn't have anything to do with habitat changes. I've fished Big River since about 1960 and my dad fished it for 25 years before that, and there simply have not been any major changes in the habitat on Big River that would have suddenly made it more favorable to spotted bass. And the Meramec had not seen any real habitat changes when the spotted bass appeared in it as well. Yes, the Meramec has changed SINCE. It's gotten wider and shallower in many areas. But at the time the spotted bass moved in, it was probably as good smallmouth habitat as it had been in the last 100 years, since the great logging boom. I can't stress it enough...it was NOT habitat changes that made the spotted bass take over. And while nobody seems to know all the mechanisms, in these rivers, the spotted bass most certainly compete with smallmouths, and the smallmouths lose unless it's very marginal spotted bass habitat. The problem is that all of the Bourbeuse, most of Big River, and the lower portions of the Meramec are and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN perfect spotted bass habitat.

The timeline is, in my opinion, compelling evidence. Early 1960s, the Missouri River dams are complete. Early 1970s, the Clean Water Act has taken full effect. Spotted bass show up in Apple Creek sometime around 1970 (probably, but they weren't collected in it before then). They show up in the next stream to the north, Saline Creek, sometime in the mid to late 1970s. They are in Establishment Creek, next stream to the north, by around 1980. They are common in the lower Meramec by the mid-1980s. And keep in mind that all those smaller streams like Apple Creek and Saline Creek were always perfect spotted bass habitat in their lower reaches, where they are very slow and murky, and they are not heavily spring fed. Just like the Meramec, if the spotted bas had been able to get into them before they did, there is simply no reason they wouldn't have.

Nobody knows for sure all the ways that spotted bass compete and push out smallmouth in these particular rivers. But geez, I've watched it happen. I've watched the smallmouth disappear in direct proportion to the number of spotted bass that appeared. If I look back over all my records, my catch rate of bass has changed little since the spotted bass moved in, but instead of all of them being smallmouth, some or most are now spotted bass. It wasn't like the smallmouth started declining before the spotted bass moved in; the spotted bass simply appear to push the smallmouth out. It's really pretty weird when you think of it. Instead of catching 50 smallmouth per day, suddenly one year I'm catching 40 smallmouth and 10 spotted bass, the next year 30 smallmouth and 20 spotted bass, and in the worst sections I fish, after about five years it's 15 smallmouth and 35 spotted bass...and the spotted bass average smaller in size. In the really bad sections that I don't bother to fish anymore, it's more like it would be 2 smallmouth and 48 spotted bass. Of course, that's an average of all my trips each year, and some sections I might only fish once a year. But it really has been almost that uniform. Some sections have stabilized at various ratios, and a couple of sections have actually changed for the better in the last few years, so maybe the smallmouth are "learning" how to compete with spotted bass.

But on these streams, you will catch spotted bass in exactly the same kinds of water that you catch smallmouth. Unlike largemouth, and unlike spotted bass in some of the south flowing streams, you can't predict that certain types of habitat will be more likely to hold spotted bass. They are everywhere the smallmouth should be.

[Okiedog]

could also be due to factors such as spots inability to grow to harvest size, kind of like the lakes, so there population just keeps growing with lots of shorts kind of like a farm pond overun by crappie,......also there is more pressure on the rivers than there used to be maybe smallies do not tolerate it as well, or have a tougher time with successful spawns with all the traffic and pressure, also way too many smallies are harvested period. It seems every year when you talk to outfitters people are getting caught keeping smallies during the spawn, how many more are being kept and not being reported? I can say from my own personal experience that it is much easier to catch large smallies in april and may than any other time of year which is during their spawn> its also the time of year you find the heads of the carcasses poached............. and another problem, and I believe it is a big problem is the giggers. They gig whatever moves, smallies, browns, etc. and a lot more people gig now than they used to,,, simply a lot more people now...............I think the problem is mult-faceted, water levels? sure. Over fishing and harrassment during the spawn? absolutley,.spots simply able to grow huge populations while staying under harvest size?...see it all the time,,,, do we lack organized, strict, science based restrictions/seasons/limits with backbone and foresight not influenced by the wishes of a few when it comes to do what is right for most when it comes to our fish populations in Missouri?....of course, some things never change.

[Okiedog]

solution= keep the spots!!, and if you cant put pressure on the MDC to lower size so they can be harvested. Catch and release is great and I am a big proponent of it, but we got to start keeping the spots.

[ColdWaterFshr]

could also be due to factors such as spots inability to grow to harvest size, kind of like the lakes, so there population just keeps growing with lots of shorts kind of like a farm pond overun by crappie,......also there is more pressure on the rivers than there used to be maybe smallies do not tolerate it as well, or have a tougher time with successful spawns with all the traffic and pressure, also way too many smallies are harvested period. It seems every year when you talk to outfitters people are getting caught keeping smallies during the spawn, how many more are being kept and not being reported? I can say from my own personal experience that it is much easier to catch large smallies in april and may than any other time of year which is during their spawn> its also the time of year you find the heads of the carcasses poached............. and another problem, and I believe it is a big problem is the giggers. They gig whatever moves, smallies, browns, etc. and a lot more people gig now than they used to,,, simply a lot more people now...............I think the problem is mult-faceted, water levels? sure. Over fishing and harrassment during the spawn? absolutley,.spots simply able to grow huge populations while staying under harvest size?...see it all the time,,,, do we lack organized, strict, science based restrictions/seasons/limits with backbone and foresight not influenced by the wishes of a few when it comes to do what is right for most when it comes to our fish populations in Missouri?....of course, some things never change.

Thats kind've what I believe. Its as simple as more fishing pressure over the last 20-30 years with more fish being harvested overall. The spots populations reproduction rates are more resilient and can handle it better than the smallmouths can.

[Al Agnew]

Thats kind've what I believe. Its as simple as more fishing pressure over the last 20-30 years with more fish being harvested overall. The spots populations reproduction rates are more resilient and can handle it better than the smallmouths can.

Nope, here's why that's not it.

Let's assume that smallmouth harvest is fairly equal over large stretches of river. If that's the case, then whether or not spotted bass are in a given stretch, that stretch should be suffering from a declining smallmouth population, or at least declining fishing success. In some stream sections, like the jetboatable portion of the Meramec, that has occurred, but in other sections, like just about all of Big River, it did not.

Now let's assume the opposite, that fishing pressure is NOT equal over the whole watershed. It's not. The jetboatable sections get more pressure, more gigging pressure as well. Yet, even in the non-jetboatable sections, the spots move in and the smallmouth population declines.

And the speed at which this happens also argues against it. Look at, just for instance, one of the stretches of Big River that I'm most familiar with. It's the stretch from Leadwood Access on the upper river to St. Francois State Park. That's about 17 miles, and it has one "barrier" besides the low water bridge at Leadwood, another low water bridge 2.5 miles downstream from Leadwood. There is also a change in habitat; between the low water bridges, the habitat is pretty good, with a number of deep pools. Below the second low water bridge, the habitat gets worse, due to the mine waste influence. And the last five miles or so above St. Francois Park are a lot slower water than that above, and sometimes a little murkier due to the influx of Terre Bleue Creek, which flows pretty murky when it's flowing strongly.

Spotted bass first began to appear around St. Francois Park maybe ten years ago. You'd catch one now and then. They were getting more and more common in the stretch below the park, and were just moving into the stretch above. Within two years, the ratio of spots to smallmouth changed from maybe 1/49 to 10/40, using my previous catch rate numbers. During that two year period, they were just beginning to show up above the mouth of Terre Bleue Creek. In the next two years, the ratio in the five miles above Terre Bleue went to 10/40, and below Terre Bleue it was 15/35. Still few if any above that five mile stretch. Two more years, and it was 20/30 both in the miles below Terre Bleue and the five miles above Terre Bleue, and 10/40 in the five more miles up to the second low water bridge. Still none above that bridge. But they got above the bridge in the next year.

Now, it's 25/25 in the lower ten miles, 20/30 in the five miles on up to the second low water bridge, and 15/35 between the low water bridges, as of last summer.

And here's the kicker...there is already a 1 fish, 15 inch limit on smallmouth throughout that whole section, and a 12 fish, no length limit on spotted bass.

[Guest]

Deleted

[Al Agnew]

Got to thinking about this a little more, and yes, the selective harvest of bigger smallmouth COULD be a part of the problem, it's just that it wasn't any part of the reason the spots moved into each stream section. They got to the lower end of the Meramec due to some factor that had never allowed them to get there before, something that changed to give them a pathway to the river. Once they got there they found habitat that was perfect for them, habitat that had always been perfect, but which they'd never been able to exploit before because they had never been able to get there before. Once they gained a foothold in the lower Meramec, they moved up the rivers at a rate of something like ten miles a year, with temporary delays caused by the old mill dams on Big River and the Bourbeuse that formed barriers to their upstream movement. Once they were above the barriers, they continued to spread as long as they found suitable habitat, and all of Big River and the Bourbeuse were suitable habitat. As they moved into each new section, they outcompeted, interbred with, and pushed out the native smallmouth in a classic example of a species moving into a new ecological niche, where the native species was not evolved to handle the competition.

Keep in mind that there is a 12 fish, no length limit on spotted bass over the whole Meramec river system. And on much of Big River, there is a 1 fish, 15 inch length limit on smallmouth. Maybe that's allowed the smallmouth to begin to hold their own, or maybe the smallmouth that have survived did so because they were more able to compete with the spotted bass, but over much of Big River at least, the situation seems to have stabilized. In the perfect spotted bass habitat--and actually marginal smallmouth habitat--of Big River below Morse Mill, it stabilized at almost total domination by spotted bass. In the stretch from Mammoth Bridge to Browns Ford, which was one of the first smallmouth special management areas where the 1 fish, 15 inch length limit has been in effect the longest, it stabilized at a point where there are more spotted bass than smallmouth, but still a viable smallmouth population. Everywhere on upstream, it looks like it might stabilize at around 50/50 or maybe a few more smallmouth than spotted bass, and in a few stretches the smallmouth have made a bit of a comeback.

And here is where habitat changes might come into effect. Will the apparent stabilization hold? If habitat really does change, the rivers get lower and warmer, will it mean the spotted bass go on and almost completely take over?

What's done is done. We can argue about how and why it happened, but it happened. The most important thing is whether we can do anything to reverse it, or even just keep it where it is in a changing world. In my opinion, this river system would be a good candidate for experimenting with even more aggressive regulations. Like, on the upper Bourbeuse and upper Big River, where the situation hasn't yet really stabilized, how about complete protection for smallmouth and no protection whatsoever for spotted bass? Or even REQUIRING that every spotted bass caught is killed, like they do with invasive lake trout in Yellowstone Lake, just to see what happens?