New smallmouth and rock bass regs approved

[Chief Grey Bear]

I would wager that those that do the most complaining don't even know the local biologist name without looking it up. If honesty was still a virtue. 

When is the last time anyone had a conversation with that person? 

But it is that time of year for the annual MSA invite a MDC biologist to our monthly meeting so we can bash them to smithereens. 

 

[Chief Grey Bear]

9 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

But...on the other hand, maybe there isn't much anyone can do to get them back to the level they once were.  The knowledge level and equipment efficiency of today's river anglers is off the charts compared to what it was back then, and there are too many people with their own interests that would scream bloody murder if their particular piece of the pie was curtailed, even if it would make a difference in the quality of angling.  I'm speaking particularly of the tournament anglers and the giggers.  The Current River episode points to the power of the tournament guys, who are understandably unwilling to change or curtail their sport for the possible benefit of the overall angling situation.  And I don't even want to talk about the giggers, most of whom are not the problem, and are just as understandably unwilling to change their sport because of the actions of the few.

Don't you guys also use the latest in electronics, rod, reel, line, baits, and jet technology? 

But they are the ones that need to change their sport for you??

 

[stlfisher]

It seems to me the MDC tries to appease everybody.  In doing so it amounts to little meaningful change...and that i think is what many find frustrating.  Unless the culture changes I doubt will ever see drastic changes even if the science supported it.  I rather like the MDC, but it is completely fair to question their methods.  We pay for it. This study feels more like it was an afterthought an operated on shoe string budget.  It would have been better to wait and conduct a more intensive study when the budget allowed that could have answered more questions instead of creating them.  Quite frankly the type of study really needed is probably outside the scope of the MDC and I am sure outside the budget.  That is an important distinction IMO.

[Al Agnew]

14 hours ago, Chief Grey Bear said:

Don't you guys also use the latest in electronics, rod, reel, line, baits, and jet technology? 

But they are the ones that need to change their sport for you??

 

Well, Chief, I did say "understandably" in both the sentence about the tournament guys and the sentence about the giggers.  I completely understand that they don't want to change their sport any more than I do mine...although personally I rarely use my jetboat in warm weather, therefore don't use the electronics, and fish more with my own lures than anything else, so I'd be a little less hypocritical in calling for them to change.

You noted that my evidence was anecdotal and thus not scientific.  I agree.  But their scientific data is also lacking in places, and there really isn't anything they can do about it at this point.  Present regulations cannot put the streams back to what they were in the 1970s...IF you buy my experience that it was better back then.  They don't have the data to tell them WHAT is was back then.  However, by studying mostly streams that are far from the best smallmouth waters, they may be making false assumptions about those that are the best, and how good they can be.

Their big sticking point in extending special management areas is that it appeared from their data that natural mortality was significant enough that stricter regs wouldn't do much good because most of the bass were going to die anyway...EXCEPT on the middle Current River.  Well, the middle Current, while not the BEST water for growing big smallmouth (a little too cool and infertile compared to rivers like the Meramec and Gasconade) is certainly more and better habitat than the smaller streams they studied and rejected.  Could it be that special management of the very best streams (by "best", I mean those with the most potential due to habitat, not those that are presently the best fishing) would make them realize their much greater potential?

If their rationale for deciding whether to put on a regulation is entirely based upon their data from studies they've done, then fine, I can live with their decisions.  But in the past, their methods were a little different.  When they put on the first three special management areas, they didn't have much data showing whether those regs would work.  They got some basic data showing what the population was like at the time they instituted the regs, and then studied the stream sections after the regs were started to see what happened.  In other words, their scientific method was to run an experiment.  The experiment showed their initial hypothesis to have validity--the size structure of the populations improved.  And that was even though two of the three areas were marginal stream sections; the Big River section was suffering greatly from spotted bass encroachment, and the Meramec section was the least fertile section of that stream other than the trout water just above it.  They then used those findings to justify putting other stream sections under special management.

So what if they did another experiment or two?  Put one of the very best sections of one of the very best streams under special management.  And why not try something a little different, like slot limits.  Right now, according to what they've told us, they are strictly using experience from putting slot limits on small reservoirs as their rationale for thinking they wouldn't work on streams.  Really?  Other states seem to find som validity on slot limits in streams.  Why not try it somewhere?

And as for gigging, they don't have ANY studies, to my knowledge, showing the effects of gigging on the size structure of the smallmouth population, yet they continually say that they don't believe gigging has an effect on the NUMBERS of smallmouth.  That's a cop-out.  Numbers are NOT the problem with gigging, if there is a problem.  The size structure is.  And the only way you find out what kind of effect illegal gigging is having on the size structure is to pick a stretch that's often gigged, close it to gigging for a period of time, and see if the size structure changes for the better.  But then you get into depriving the giggers, including the legal ones, of their sport.  And that's a can of worms that I don't blame MDC for avoiding.

Which is why I said I'm about done with fighting these battles.  The reality is that MDC has gone about as far as they are willing to go, and probably as far as they CAN go, not because the science is against it, but because the politics are.

 

[MOPanfisher]

50 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

 The reality is that MDC has gone about as far as they are willing to go, and probably as far as they CAN go, not because the science is against it, but because the politics are

I will agree with that.  Real, repeatable, hard scientific data over a wide range of habitat would take many years to accumulate and quantify.  And I would even agree that many streams were better some years back.  River ecosystems change and evolve, pollution, gravel, flooding, predarion, riparian development, fishing pressure all have their effects.  Would stream specific regs be more beneficial, I would say yes, however the state does try to avoid have too much of a variety of regs for folks to figure out, and I understand that.  There will ALWAYS be a trade off with the political ramifications.  Completely banning harvest of smallmouth and goggle eye for a period of 2 years might have a tremendous effect (unlikely it would be as much as we would like), but that would be a very tough sell to the public. 

[Chief Grey Bear]

22 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

Well, Chief, I did say "understandably" in both the sentence about the tournament guys and the sentence about the giggers.  I completely understand that they don't want to change their sport any more than I do mine...although personally I rarely use my jetboat in warm weather, therefore don't use the electronics, and fish more with my own lures than anything else, so I'd be a little less hypocritical in calling for them to change.

 

Yes you did say understandably. And I'm not trying to be an A-hole but, because you use your equipment less often it justifies it? I personally I do not care if you've got it, use it. That's what you got it for. 

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You noted that my evidence was anecdotal and thus not scientific.  I agree.  But their scientific data is also lacking in places, and there really isn't anything they can do about it at this point.  Present regulations cannot put the streams back to what they were in the 1970s...IF you buy my experience that it was better back then.  They don't have the data to tell them WHAT is was back then.  However, by studying mostly streams that are far from the best smallmouth waters, they may be making false assumptions about those that are the best, and how good they can be.

I've always been curious as to how the MDC does not have a baseline but you do. When by your own admission its antidotal. 

I would say it's a pretty darn tough argument to say the fishing is worse now than it was then. I won't go so far to say it's better but I think it would be very hard to argue that it is worse.  

And we both agree that changing the regulations is but one small part of the great picture that it takes to make better quality fishing. 

This months Missouri conservationist had a great article about some local land owners along the Meramec that are making some needed changes in land management practices. Some of those changes are exactly what I've been calling for the MSA to step forward over the last few years and initiate. We all know where that went. 

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Their big sticking point in extending special management areas is that it appeared from their data that natural mortality was significant enough that stricter regs wouldn't do much good because most of the bass were going to die anyway...EXCEPT on the middle Current River.  Well, the middle Current, while not the BEST water for growing big smallmouth (a little too cool and infertile compared to rivers like the Meramec and Gasconade) is certainly more and better habitat than the smaller streams they studied and rejected.  Could it be that special management of the very best streams (by "best", I mean those with the most potential due to habitat, not those that are presently the best fishing) would make them realize their much greater potential?

If their rationale for deciding whether to put on a regulation is entirely based upon their data from studies they've done, then fine, I can live with their decisions.  But in the past, their methods were a little different.  When they put on the first three special management areas, they didn't have much data showing whether those regs would work.  They got some basic data showing what the population was like at the time they instituted the regs, and then studied the stream sections after the regs were started to see what happened.  In other words, their scientific method was to run an experiment.  The experiment showed their initial hypothesis to have validity--the size structure of the populations improved.  And that was even though two of the three areas were marginal stream sections; the Big River section was suffering greatly from spotted bass encroachment, and the Meramec section was the least fertile section of that stream other than the trout water just above it.  They then used those findings to justify putting other stream sections under special management.

So what if they did another experiment or two?  Put one of the very best sections of one of the very best streams under special management.  And why not try something a little different, like slot limits.  Right now, according to what they've told us, they are strictly using experience from putting slot limits on small reservoirs as their rationale for thinking they wouldn't work on streams.  Really?  Other states seem to find som validity on slot limits in streams.  Why not try it somewhere?

I think you're going to have a very tough uphill battle with this.

I went on a sampling survey last year. We did about a three-quarter mile section of river and we sampled 4 different holes. If I remember correctly, we measured and weighed 163 smallmouth bass. That number represents about 15% of the smallmouth that we saw. We also saw several, several very large smallmouth that were able to elude the electric field. 

So while the sampling surveys do not get a very proportionate number of available fish in a given area, angling for them is a much, much smaller percentage. And by your own admission, since you float so quickly for so many miles, you are only, as you said, catching the easy fish. Days of 50 to 100 fish do sound very impressive. And they are. But when you spread those numbers out over 15 miles and 12 hour days, they become much less representative of what the potential of the waters are.

As for the slot limits on rivers, I'm not necessarily opposed to them,but I think in the private conversations that you and I  have had, there are much better avenues of achieving a greater success rate in growing larger fish. 

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And as for gigging, they don't have ANY studies, to my knowledge, showing the effects of gigging on the size structure of the smallmouth population, yet they continually say that they don't believe gigging has an effect on the NUMBERS of smallmouth.  That's a cop-out.  Numbers are NOT the problem with gigging, if there is a problem.  The size structure is.  And the only way you find out what kind of effect illegal gigging is having on the size structure is to pick a stretch that's often gigged, close it to gigging for a period of time, and see if the size structure changes for the better.  But then you get into depriving the giggers, including the legal ones, of their sport.  And that's a can of worms that I don't blame MDC for avoiding.

It's absolutely not a cop out. Nobody has any proof that giggers are causing damage to the upper class of fish. 

You can do some electro fishing in the late fall when the waters are clearer. I am quite positive if you talk to the local biologist and you establish a relationship with him, you could get that done and you could go with him and participate. And then you could see what is really out there. 

But if you want any credibility in that the large size class a smallmouth are eradicated by giggers, you're gonna have to stop posting pictures of those same fish. 

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Which is why I said I'm about done with fighting these battles.  The reality is that MDC has gone about as far as they are willing to go, and probably as far as they CAN go, not because the science is against it, but because the politics are.

 

A battle quit is a battle lost. 

I don't think the MDC has gone as far as they are willing to go. I think with a good working set of regulations and a positive attitude and a good presentation things could change. I have gotten very good vibe from them in the discussions that I've had. But as I've said in the past if the MSA wants to get some better regulations they're going to have to change their attitude towards in the MDC. 

I see Matt and some of the boys from the MSA are coming down to Springfield on March 25 to speak with the Ozark smallmouth association. Are you going to come with them? 

[Al Agnew]

I had a great relationship with the biologist on Big River until he recently retired...haven't met whoever it is who took his place yet.  Went on electroshocking surveys with him, so I know how it works.

They don't have baseline data of what the middle Meramec could be because they never studied it back in those days.  I have data of my catch rates of numbers and big fish.  I averaged 50 fish per day on the middle Meramec for a period of a decade or so.  I can't average that many per day now on it, fishing in the warm weather months.  As for big fish, I averaged around one over 18 inches per trip back then, again in warm weather months, and I wasn't nearly as knowledgeable as I am now.  Yep, you see big fish pictures coming from the middle Meramec, but 75% or more of them are winter fish, and 90% of those are taken from about a dozen specific pools in 70 miles of river.  When the fish in those pools that we catch and release (and hopefully they survive) scatter into their summer habitat, that's a lot of miles of river.  Back then I caught big ones all along each stretch, and one of my best stretches back then doesn't even have any wintering pools that I can catch big fish from, so it's really bad in the summer.  Interestingly, it happens to be a stretch with a LOT of public access with boat ramps in a 20 mile section.  

While my data is somewhat anecdotal, it mirrors what a few other anglers who were fishing back then also remember.  

I think it all boils down to the fact that jetboats make fishing and gigging the middle Meramec so much more convenient and effective that the river is just under so much more pressure now than it was back then.  Other than the illegal gigging, it's legal pressure.  But it has had an effect on the fishing.  There are quite a few tournaments on the middle Meramec, and if the Current River episode is any indication, MDC won't or can't put any kind of special regs on it that will curtail the tournament guys.  But hey, they put special regs over the whole length of Big River now.  I am very happy about that.  They put the spotted bass regs over the whole Meramec river system.  That was terrific.  They've done a lot of good stuff.  I just think they've gone as far as they can go in the direction they've been headed.  

[Chief Grey Bear]

I didn't imply you didn't know how to do sampling, I said to go with them to see what is there. 

Has a fisheries biologist told you they have no idea about the middle section because it was never studied? 

Actually your speaking of this 70 mile section sounds pretty productive. The majority of the pics were taken in shorts and bare feet. And knowing that the upper third of most river systems don't produce many large fish and that the lower third produces big fish but are so spread out due to the volumn of water, your middle third sounds like it is pretty productive. 

But when you promote rivers with lots of access, success rates are bound to go down. 

[Dan Kreher]

I think most all of us are sick of 'fighting city hall' on this topic. I personally like the dedicated MDC fisheries professionals I've been in contact with over the years. I believe they made an honest effort to move Missouri's stream smallmouth bass program forward in this last go round. Many anglers are not entirely pleased with the regs changes they enacted --particularly canning the 18/1 limit on Jacks and Gasconade -- but on balance the regulations regime is better than where it was previously.

Could things be better? Certainly. Is it likely that MDC is going to do a lot more work in this area on more widespread and innovative smallmouth bass management on our streams? Highly doubtful. That's not a jab at them. It's just the reality that I and many anglers I know foresee. They spent a bunch of staff time, money and effort in doing the research, tagging study, angler survey, public meetings, etc. We cannot fault them for that. All don't necessarily agree with the conclusions reached. But you cannot say they didn't make the effort.

Tournament interests -- I get it -- don't want to restrict their activities by enacting regs that might improve the overall fishery. Understand their position particularly since their ranks are voluntary C&R guys as well. 

As far as poaching/illegal gigging of sportfish -- the MDC will do what it can education-wise and end up busting a violator here and there. Are they going to do a comprehensive experimental study as suggested -- don't hold your breath. Too hot to handle politically as you end up throwing the good apples in with the bad ones. 

We as anglers need to continue to spread the message of restricted harvest, voluntary C&R, slow growth rates of stream smallies and preservation/protection of the environments these bronze bass call home.

Wish I could say that I'll miss these far-ranging online discussions on the management of our favorite fish . . . but I doubt it.

I agree with Joe D on this one. Let's just enjoy what we've got with respect to our Ozark streams, smallmouth fisheries, etc.  Let's spend less time griping online and more time on the water doing what we love.

[Johnsfolly]

31 minutes ago, Dan Kreher said:

We as anglers need to continue to spread the message of restricted harvest, voluntary C&R, slow growth rates of stream smallies and preservation/protection of the environments these bronze bass call home.

Wish I could say that I'll miss these far-ranging online discussions on the management of our favorite fish . . . but I doubt it.

I agree with Joe D on this one. Let's just enjoy what we've got with respect to our Ozark streams, smallmouth fisheries, etc.  Let's spend less time griping online and more time on the water doing what we love.

I agree with you on these points Dan. We could live in a state where the game commissions don't have the budget to be able to even do half of the work that was done before these regulations were implemented. As a result we could be looking at creel limits of 6 fish over 12" per day in our rivers and lakes like many other states.