big Ozark river smallmouths

[Crippled Caddis]

Many thanks Al. Wonderful bit of writing and a signifigant historical overview of man's depredations on just one aquatic eco-system. As Hank pointed out it needs to be published and IMO the house organ of the MO DNR is the place it should see light. I hope you will consider submitting it to them. Whether the guts to print it exists at that level is a different matter entirely. But the decision on that would be a revealing bit of data itself. Please consider sharing it with a wider audience. CC

[drew03cmc]

Al, I am astounded at the amount of information you have to share! Each time I read a post by you, it gets more and more impressive. Like hank said, please publish this information in a book on smallmouth bass fishing in the Ozarks. (hint hint). I feel that if more people on here would read what you have to say about conservation, as well as maintenance of a resource, that we would benefit as a whole from a much better fishery as a whole as a state (if that makes sense).

[Danimal]

At the risk of sounding foolish- exactly how, where, and when were spots introduced into ozark waters? Or were they native to some but not all Ozark and Ouachita mountain streams? Dan-o

[taxidermist]

http://www.mdc.missouri.gov/areas/stlouis/...g/bass/whyneed/

I tend tho think the spots have always been here. I have caught spots in small small streams in the Ozarks and even in Kansas where you dont think they should be.

An old long time friend who recently passed away talked about catching kentucky bass way back in the 1920s when he was a kid on White River and Arkansas River near Pine Bluff, he knew his fish so I have to think he was telling the truth.

Spots have a look and pattern not like the largemouth, so I look at pictures too. I dont see spots in the old pics from up around the Lead Hill Tucker Hollow areas before it was a lake. I do see other fish and lots of nice largemouth.

Fishes of Missouri I think has a map as does its sister Fishes of Arkansas.

[creek wader]

Ok Al, you got my curiosity up. What does your homemade spinner look like? I know you won't reveal that, but can you at least tell me if it's a willow leaf or an inline, or something. It's quite obvious it's your go to bait. Do you sell them? ... I'm mainly a jig fisherman, but I willing to change, to increase the quality of my catch. ... Come on, throw us a bone. ...Please.....

[creek wader]

Al, On the subject of Spotted Bass. I fished the lower Osage River near Jeff. City last year. I couldn't believe the number of Spots, that I caught there. I also, caught a handful of smallie/spotted hybrids. I wrote the MDC, and told them of my "find". They weren't too suprised. The strange thing about these "hybrids" was that no two looked alike. Some had strong Smallie characteristics, while others had more of the Kentucky characteristics. I caught several that I couldn't tell what the heck they were. If the weather and my free time ever cooperate, I plan on fishing the lower Osage again this year. This time I'll take my digital with me, and post some pics of these "hybrids". I guess that you've been encountering these mixed up fish, on the Big and Meramec rivers, for awhile.

[Danimal]

We see the same variation in appearance down in these parts. Dan-o

[Crippled Caddis]

On the spread of the Spotted Bass.

While I'm hardly a fisheries biologist my take is that the warming up of the streams caused by habitat alterations is the #1 cause. Reading some research on the MDC website they tell us that Smallmouth start becoming stressed as water temps approach 80 degrees and die if it gets over 90 degrees. I've always believed that Spots could withstand higher temps and do well in water too warm for Smallies. And largemouth flourish in water too warm for Spots. In my Simple Simon way of thinking I find it analogous to the portions of a stream that trout choose. The Brook trout, being a fish that prefers, even needs, cold water, inhabit the tiny, icy headwaters of streams. The Rainbows can tolerate slightly warmer water so they utilize the areas downstream of the colder headwaters. Brown trout, being even less temperature specific can tolerate the slower, warmer water as the stream widens, flattens out and warms up. So in my simple thought processes I see the Smallmouth as analogous to the Brookie, the Spots occupying the niche of the Rainbows and the Largemouth as being the Brown trout of the warmwater world.

It is the result of habitat destruction and resulting warmer water that has decimated Brook trout populations in their traditional range and I think we're seeing exactly the same thing in the case of the Smallmouth of the Ozarks. If a specie surrenders it's ecological niche there will always be another that will fill the vacancy.

Just my dos centavos. CC

[Al Agnew]

Spotted bass are native to the south-flowing streams of the Missouri Ozarks, including Elk River and tributaries, all the White River tribs, Spring, Eleven Point, Current, Black, St. Francis, and Castor. They were NOT native to any of the north-flowing streams of the Osage, Gasconade, and Meramec river systems. Nor were they native to the little streams that flow directly into the Mississippi in southern Missouri, from Apple Creek just a short way north of Cape Girardeau to Joachim Creek, the first tributary south of the Meramec. In the streams where they are native, they made up a relatively small percentage of the bass population except in the lower ends, where the water was warmer and murkier...CC is right in that spotted bass don't do well in really cool water, nor do they do well if the stream gradient is much steeper than 3.5 feet per mile. They evolved to co-exist with smallmouths in these streams, with the smallmouths dominating in good smallmouth habitat and the spots only common in marginal smallie habitat. In the rivers that are still undammed, like Current River and Eleven Point, it's still this way...you'll see few if any spots on Current River above Doniphan and the Eleven Point in Missouri, though they become common on both streams in Arkansas.

However, on streams that were dammed, the spotted bass thrived in the resulting reservoirs, and the continually replenishing population in the reservoirs colonized the streams above if they are not too cold and fast, which is why you see quite a few spotted bass on the James above Table Rock and on Bryant Creek above Norfork. You don't see as many on the North Fork above Norfork because it's colder. In the case of Black River, Clearwater Dam made the lower Black warmer and murkier, and spotted bass pretty well took it over...before the dam, there were few spotted bass until you got pretty close to Poplar Bluff.

The St. Francis River is kind of a special case. In it, unlike the other streams, spotted bass and smallmouth share the same stream stretches. Spotted bass were much more common that smallies on the St. Francis 20 years ago, but the smallies have increased considerably since then, reason unknown. Castor River is just the opposite...you'll seldom see a spotted bass much above the Hwy. 34 bridge, but in a stretch of just a few miles around the bridge, the character of the river changes from relatively fast and extremely clear to relatively slow and murky, and by the time you get four or five miles below the bridge, smallies are almost non-existent.

According to Pflieger in the book "The Fishes of Missouri", spotted bass showed up in the Osage River system--apparently by an undocumented introduction--prior to 1940, and by the early 1940s they were well established in the upper Osage system, Lake of the Ozarks, and the lower Osage. They appeared in the Moreau River, which enters the Missouri a short distance downstream from the mouth of the Osage, in the late 1950s.

Then MDC made what was probably a big mistake by stocking spotted bass in the Lamine, Perche, and Loutre rivers starting in 1962. The Lamine enters the Missouri from the south, upstream of the Osage, while the Perche and Loutre enter the Missouri from the north, and unfortunately the Loutre enters just a short distance downstream from where the Gasconade meets the Missouri on the opposite side. By the early 1970s, the spots had entered the Gasconade, and they probably came from the Loutre stocking.

As for the Meramec, it's commonly believed that those fish also came down from the Loutre and Missouri, but I have a much different theory, and I think I can back it up.

Remember that they were not native to the little streams flowing into the Mississippi between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis. I fished all these streams from the 1970s on. When I was going to college in Cape in the early 1970s, spotted bass were already in Apple Creek, the farthest DOWNSTREAM of these creeks. They were common below the Appleton mill dam, non-existent above it--the dam apparently formed a barrier to their upward spread, because the habitat above it was certainly suitable for them. At that same time, they were NOT found in Saline Creek, the next significant Mississippi tributary upstream. But by the early 1980s, they were very common in lower Saline Creek, and also in Establishment Creek, the next upstream tributary. I'm not sure when they first appeared in Joachim Creek, farther upstream, but I'd be willing to bet it was sometime soon after they appeared in Saline Creek.

I do know that they first appeared in the lower Meramec in the early 1980s, but didn't get common there until the mid-80s. From there they moved up Big River and the Bourbeuse. They were non-existent in lower Big River in the late 1970s, and it took them a long time to get past the sequence of mill dams on lower Big River. It also took them a long time to get past the Guths mill dam on the lower Bourbeuse, because I fished the lower Bourbeuse around 1980 and saw no spots. But by the 1990s, they had made it past all the mill dams except the Noser Mill dam on the Bourbeuse, and they've made it past that one by now. Unfortunately, it isn't habitat change that have allowed them to thrive on Big River and the Bourbeuse...these streams have ALWAYS been slow, warm, and murky compared to the typical Ozark stream, so they've always been excellent spotted bass habitat. But before the spots got there, the smallies, with no competition from them, thrived and probably grew bigger on these fertile streams than on streams farther south. The Meramec itself is a little faster and considerably cooler above the area of Meramec State Park, so while spotted bass are found throughout most of the Meramec, the smallies are competing very well with them on the upper river. Not so on the Bourbeuse and Big.

So where did these spotted bass come from, and why did they suddenly show up in the Meramec river system? My theory is this:

Remember that they were native to the Castor and St. Francis river systems, along with the Black and White. All these streams did flow far down into Arkansas before finally entering the Mississippi. There was a long stretch of the Mississippi separating those river systems from the Meramec and the other little tribs in Missouri, so those fish were isolated by distance. They were also isolated in that the Mississippi itself was pretty inhospitable, being tremendously silty below the mouth of the Missouri.

But, around the turn of the last century, the Diversion Channel was constructed, diverting the Castor River away from the swamps of the Missouri Bootheel, in order to drain the swamps for agriculture. The Diversion Channel takes the Castor River and runs it directly into the Mississippi, just south of Cape Girardeau. So the spotted bass then had a direct route into the Mississippi just 20 miles or so downstream from the lowest tributary in Missouri, Apple Creek. However, ol' Miss was still pretty inhospitable, not only from the tremendous silt load it carried, but probably also from pollution.

But, by the 1970s, two things had happened. The Clean Water Act had taken effect, cleaning up much of the pollution on the Mississippi, and the upstream dams on the Missouri river in the Dakotas had been built, trapping a lot of the silt that had always come down that river into the Mississippi. The Missouri was dumping considerably less silt into the Mississippi, and the river was now clean enough to allow the spotted bass to start moving up it. First Apple Creek, then Saline Creek, then Establishment Creek, then Joachim Creek, and finally the Meramec.

So, I think there is a good chance that three human activities, seemingly having nothing to do with spotted bass in the Meramec River, had the unforeseen result of allowing them to ruin a once terrific smallmouth fishery on Big River, the Bourbeuse, and the lower Meramec. The Diversion Channel, the Clean Water Act, and dams a thousand miles away.

[creek wader]

Al, It sounds like you've been a tuned to this "spot invasion" for awhile. You mentioned the Moreau River. I haven't fished below the confluence of it's two forks, but I've caught spots in the north fork of the Moreau. I haven't caught any in the south fork of the Moreau, yet. I guess it's a matter of time. Maybe the combination of the low water conditions in recent years, along with several low water dams and have slowed the spots progress in the south fork of the Moreau. The south fork of the Moreau is much clearer with more gravel, and a steeper gradiant. Although, it is small in size, it has a decent smallie population. Not large fish but, plenty of small ones to keep you active. It is a great wading stream. I frequent it alot. I rarely see another fisherman. I love the solitude. I'd hate to see the spots invade this one also.