Why Does Fishing Continue To Decline In Our Rivers?

[E Green]

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[ness]

Oh I agree.

It's just, given all that, it seems like we have plenty of rationale to be careful with the smallmouth that are still in the river. Overharvest (legal and illegal) may not even be the main cause for the decline, but no one can reasonably argue that it doesn't hurt. And to be honest, it's a heck of a lot more practical to curb than danged near any of the other issues you just detailed.

I had a dog and his name was BINGO!

[Gavin]

Good one Ness. Decline is a death of a thousand cuts. Incremental changes that few notice because or lifetimes are very short. You can't blame one thing.

[Al Agnew]

Yep, now we're getting to the heart of the matter. There may be a lot of ills that are depressing bass populations in Ozark streams--or sometimes not populations in general but the population dynamics: a smaller than desirable percentage of the population being larger fish. But some of those ills are a lot harder to address than others. You can't easily stop unwise use and development in the watersheds that erodes more gravel into the streams, dumps more water during floods, deposits more chemicals and pollutants in the water, overfertilizes the algae growth, etc. Experience has also proven that it will never be easy to control the use of big, high speed boats and their attendant wakes. There aren't enough trappers to kill off all the otters, and no laws that even allow thinning many of the other predators of stream gamefish. Many of the problems won't be solved or even slowed until enough people see them as problems, and that won't happen until the streams are near terminal.

But there are SOME things we can address, as long as we're mostly on the same page that they would help. More restrictive regs are one of those things. It's doable and I believe it would make some difference. Better enforcement is also doable if we are willing to somehow foot the bill for some more agents and can scream loud enough for MDC to get more serious about doing it. Neither of those things will magically make the fishing fantastic and the fish populations perfect, but they should bring about some improvement.

[Mitch f]

Oh I agree.

It's just, given all that, it seems like we have plenty of rationale to be careful with the smallmouth that are still in the river. Overharvest (legal and illegal) may not even be the main cause for the decline, but no one can reasonably argue that it doesn't hurt. And to be honest, it's a heck of a lot more practical to curb than danged near any of the other issues you just detailed.

Thank you.

[Guest]

all otters & poachers will be shot on site! (sarcasm)

[joeD]

Thing is,no one cares.

Fishing ain't what it used to be? Boo hoo.

How do we feed our kids? Educate them? Care for the elderly and poor? Maintain our roads?

We are just another mewling, bleating, baby in a nest of other open mouthed hungry, needy babies waiting for momma (govt) to feed us and give us what we want.