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Tim Smith

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Everything posted by Tim Smith

  1. My son ran a cross country race at Kickapoo State Park today where they passed around a petiton with 17,000 signatures in support of the park there. ...but even with this massive show of support, if you don't go after Blago, he will have gotten away with this "game" of threatening beloved public resources for political advantage. If you don't punish politicians who play this cynical lowest common denominator kind of game you'll see this over and over again. Blago has to go. ...where can I sign that petition?
  2. Congratulations Don and thank you Rich for all you've done for Illinois streams. The ISA is coming off a good stretch and headed onward and upward still.
  3. Several hundred people were at Kickapoo yesterday to protest the closing of the State Park. The protest was apparently organized by Tod Satterthwaite, former mayor of Urbana, who runs the concession there and has contributed Middle Fork float trips the last 3 years to the Blow-out. Downstate Democrats are furious over the closing. Blago must go.
  4. Paul Frierichs, the IL State Rep for the Kickapoo Park was on the radio this morning and he said he was utterly disgusted by this proposal. His take was that Blago did it specifically to punish political enemies and raise anger in the state and he also felt these closures had no chance of moving ahead as conceived. Some of those parks are the best parks on the list for East Central Illinois and it is completely absurd that they are being closed. Frankly, I think Blago should get his wish... ...I think we should get mad enough to make sure the Blago reptile gets impeached.
  5. Tim Smith

    acid rain

    That is true. It has moved to the back burner of issues. I wonder what the latest information is on that? I'm sure someone is working on it. I do know there has been some significant regulation to curb acid rain. Quite a few coal sources are no longer being minded because of their sulfur content (including some Illinois coal). Scrubbers and other technology have made inroads as well. I don't think thought, that there were many places being poisoned altogether. The buffering capacity of most watersheds is pretty strong. It's the rare lake in the US that was experiencing actual problems. Limestone buildings sure were taking a hit.
  6. Wade, I agree with you. Building a dam like that can do things like modify the course of a river. The reporter is trying to connect this to the limited liability issue for landowners, but that's a stretch. Even if the land owner weren't liable, it's unrealistic to expect them to tolerate someone coming onto their property to play out their Corps of Engineers fantasies. They were out of line. Unfortunately, this one is a blow against free access to streams.
  7. Gotta use that anchor, Dick. Those downstream sleigh rides are not good for fishing...or for staying out of strainers and staying upright. All in all though, that's a great day!
  8. Steve I'm sure you're right that bass are having some success foraging during turbid condtions. If a bass is hungry it will try to feed regardless of conditoins. It will try to catch baitfish (and lures) in low turbidity, and succeed sometimes. But is it as successful on average as it would be during clear water conditions? I wonder if the fact that you're seeing baitfish in the open during turbid conditions is linked to the fact that bass can't see them. Risk of predation is specifically why baitfish and invertebrates tend to become active at dawn and dusk. For both baitfish and invertebrates, the level of activity in low light and at night is linked to the presence of predators. If no predators are there, the prey species are active all the time. When predators are present, prey wait for poor visibility to forage. Mike, those are interesting articles. I'd be curious to see the reference about benthic invertebrates. It does seem from the examples and taxa listed that the physics and biology involved are more relevant for lakes than most of the rivers I fish. There is very little phytoplankon and thus very little zooplankton in small rivers. Lakes and reservoirs (and large slow moving rivers) are where zooplakton really come into their own. There they are the primary forage for small fish. The comments in the article about barometric pressure acting as a cue for changing conditions fit with what I was saying. Connect that to a river where changing conditions often result in turbid water after a rain and you have both good conditions before the flood and bad conditions after the flood. Double sides of a coin to eat as much as you can ahead of a front.
  9. Great discussion here. Brenden's statement above is good to keep in mind in almost any discussion about a complex ecological-behavioral issue like this. There are exceptions to every rule and a few fond memories of a fluke can skew your perceptions. Sometimes too you can have a pattern down, but draw the wrong conclusions from it. More often than not, more than one thing is actually causing a pattern. I'll say this about what I've seen as a biologist. Things that happen in nature are rarely caused by "one thing". Water level rises have been happening in rivers for billions of years. Every scrap of DNA in those rivers has been sifted and sorted by those events to create the patterns in DNA that handle floods best. There is strong evolutionary pressure to handle disturbances like that as well as possible to ensure survival. Fish probably take advantage of many factors surrounding a flood, not just one. Temperature, light, new available habitat, terrestrial inputs...and possibly more. Phil and I have also talked about reasons feeding activity increases before a flood. I think we see 2 different sides of the same coin on that issue. Why do fish feed so actively before a flood? Because prey is active? Ok, well why are are prey fish etc. are more active then? Is it because there really more opportunities to feed then or is it because there diminished opportunity to feed later when conditions are bad? Could it be both? I've not researched the specific advantages fish have from feeding on rising water. I'd be curious to know what data is out there to show that prey are more available on rising water. I have, however, researched the disadvantages to feeding after a flood. Once the flood hits and water clarity drops, search distances plummet. If you're a visual predator like bass, you can't catch what you can't see. Hunting success declines in cloudy water. That fits with what others here have said about clear water being the key to success with or without fronts. The scientific data is pretty clear for visual fish predators. That doesn't mean fish can't hunt in turbid water, but it does take away some of their hunting options and it lowers their overall success rate over the long run. All of this feeds into natural selection. An animal that loads up on forage before a flood will have a greater total energy intake than an animal that doesn't binge before a period of bad hunting conditions. Remember that natural selection has a tendancy to drive these fish to maximize their growth. Body size is a key predictor of overwinter survival, spawning success, over all fecundity, vulnerability to predators and a host of other things. Big fish almost always has the advantage for survival and reproduction. They must grow to succeed. To prepare for a storm, the fish only needs to know the front is coming (and apparently they do...see below). They're also too primitive to reason out why they should feed before a flood comes, so they need a physiological trigger that drives them to raise their feed. That exists. Environmental cues (like light levels, but other things too) can trigger specific neurotransmitter releases at their nerve synapses. Those can increase aggression and activity levels which can in turn trigger things like feeding binges (think of it as them setting muscles on a hair trigger...the slighted inclination to do something results in action). Back when I was really excited by this I had all the citations for this stuff...I can look it up again if anyone cares. Norm feels river fish can't perceive barometric pressue, and maybe that's true. However, fish can definitely tell when a front is coming before it arrives. We ran a 3 year gill net survey on the upper Kaskaskia River from 1989-1991 and in the river, all the gizzard shad that had running eggs were collected within 48 hours of rain event (before and after, rising and pre-rising hydrograph). That's many dozens of fish and a statistically microscopic chance that's a fluke. I've seen other studies that showed the same thing. I do still wonder about barometric pressure and fish. The time frame in our study leaves a small number of environmental cues for the fish to pick up to know that a front is coming. Barometric pressure is one. Light due to cloud cover might work. In this case, however, rising water was not the cue that drove that behavior. The fish are probably monitoring several cues because the better information they have about when floods are coming, the better they can cope with them. Norm's right that pressure changes in depth are much greater than barometric pressure changes. Maybe that mechanism just won't work. Maybe too, the fish can calibrate the differences in pressure against known depth and velocities. I don't know. I'm just questioning and I haven't seen enough research on that point to have a strong opinion about that. It's probably the case that the fish is monitoring several cues, perhaps including some we haven't thought about. The idea that temperature generally drives the drop in feeding after floods has some interesting angles that should be addressed. For instance, in summer when the bass are stressed by hot temperatures, cooler water temperatures after a rain event may actually make the water MORE suitable for foraging and growth (mid to low 70s). Reduced light and search area is still out there as an alternative hypothesis for the main driver in reduced feeding in post-flood conditions. Again, those mechanisms may well work in conjuction toward the same effect. Here are some questions whose answers might help determine which factor is important or which factor is important when: Look for the amount the temperature drops after a front against the optimal temperatures smallmouth prefer. Is the drop in feeding less when the drop is say...from 65 to 55 than it is when the drop is from 78 to 72 or from 82 to 78? What about post-front days that produce too little rain to cloud the water but are still very bright and have high barometric pressue. Is river fishing still impaired then? (In my experience, no). In systems where forage is scarce are the bass unable to binge ahead of a front? Maybe you could see differences in post-front feeding depressions between systems with fat fish and systems with lean fish. If a binge is unsuccessful and the fish is still hungry after the front, maybe they continue to feed at the same rate. Plenty to think about here with nice practical applications for chosing times and places to fish. Again. Great topic. Nice stuff all around.
  10. They're not discharging yet. Their biggest impact at this point would be erosion. Hopefully they're got their haybales and silt fences in place... ...do they?
  11. That's why suggesting helicopters was supposed to be funny.
  12. I like Eric's suggestion about keeping SMB out of the derby, but I suspect it will meet resistance. Not to open another can of worms, but I've actually been involved with small catch and release tournaments among groups of friends. They worked well. I suppose it's not practical for a larger derby where cheating is already an issue (although if everyone had a camera and Norm's ruler..and judges spaced along the bank...and helicopters ...).
  13. Maybe "dominion" is just a fancy word for being able to do something...if that's true I agree with you Ron that humans surely do have "dominion". I also agree that some of these cases are knottier than others. There are plenty of grey areas. Still, not every lake and river was made for fish and fishing. Hopefully anglers can agree that even though fisheries are obviously an important ecosystem service, anything that contributes to the extinction of another species is just wrong if you can avoid doing it. Those "voids" have other species there that probably can't handle competition and predation from sportfish. One reason for bringing all of this to the fore here, is because anglers are in a unique position where this issue is concerned. A large, educated group of anglers that focuses targeted effort on an exotic species might make a difference. We won't ever remove an exotic species, but we might dampen their effects...and maybe enjoy doing it.
  14. I would say this about that program, though... ...they might do better to promote hook and line management of the existing smallmouth population than to try to remove them with more invasive means (they probably can't accomplish a full removal anyway...might as well get the benefit of the fish that are there).
  15. Jim. Interesting link. You can see from the negative reactions on the board to the USFWS management plan there that the idea of preserving native fish isn't one that has caught on in most/some quarters. The responses are all pretty typical. "What's so special about chubs anyway? Why are they playing God? If I'm catching fish it must be a healthy river so back off." What's so special about chubs? We don't even have enough information to know yet. Every species is unique in what it can do and what compounds and activities it creates. Once a species is lost, you can never get back what was unique to it. Medicines, useful compounds, ecological services of kinds we don't even understand yet all go down the tubes when we allow a species to go extinct. If the choice is one more of many choices to engage in sport fishing vs. losing a species...preserving the species should trump fishing. Playing God? Stocking the bass there in the first place was playing God. Taking them out is trying to restore the natural balance. Judging the health of a river by how big your favorite fish are there? By that standard, we should all be fishing the brood stock raceways and ponds at the hatchery.
  16. TU has done some good stuff...and had some set-backs too. They're still in the learning curve with everyone else.
  17. Excellent article here in the New York Times regarding stream restoration: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/science/...amp;oref=slogin Here's a quote: "Many hydrologists and geologists say people embark on projects without fully understanding the waterways they want to restore and without paying enough attention to what happens after a project is finished." The gist of the article is that the demand for stream restorations has outstripped the science. Restorations are very expensive, often fail, and generally need more monitoring and research to the feedback necessary to improve the way they are done. Kudos to the ISA for following up with support for monitoring on the Clear Creek restoration they helped fund last year.
  18. So much to cover here... First. The "appeal" to fishers is a specific stance. It isn't possible to legislate morality. A fine or a law can curb but cannot stop behaviors that harm fisheries. Effective conservation depends on moral choices by individuals. Second. "Limit" impact. Fishing will always create some environmental effects. The hope here is to conciously minimize them. Third. This philosophy is aimed at "natural populations". More about this later. Conservation should be directed first at native populations of fish. The genetic diversity and potential for co-adaptation is much greater among those fish. Fourth. "Safe, healthy and stable..." All populations fluctuate. All populations are dynamically stable at best. This philosophy doesn't mandate no effect, but it mandates a minimal effect. Science views the term "health" with a bit of skepticism for ecosystems, but there are specific meanings that can be applied. Healthy populations have the following traits: a. Genetically diverse. Populations are not so small or isolated that inbreeding is an issue. b. Locally adapted. Whatever genetic history a population has at a specific site has been retained and not diluted by outbreeding. c. Resilent. Reproduction and recovery from disturbance is possible and likely. d. Persistent. The population can continue indefinitely. 5. "Science." Everyone is an expert on sex, religion and fishing. Not. Depend on data and careful analysis independently of ego.
  19. 3. We appeal to all fishers to limit their impact on natural populations of smallmouth bass and other species to the point that those populations are safe, healthy and stable according to the best scientific information available.
  20. Once you've met a large number of older commercial fishermen who spend every day on the water, this point drives itself home. Their eyes are in terrible shape. You're getting a smaller dose of UV, than they are but much more than the average person. UV protection is a must.
  21. I think Steve may have something here. Most sediment moves in major floods. Ron, I'd be very curious to know how the algae sets up this year in the Dupage and Kankakee as the water goes down. Later in the summer we got lower rates of algae accumulation in our statewide surveys. Maybe that was due to the faster growth rates and more grazing by animals eating algae or something else. Maybe it will help keep things less clogged. Maybe not.
  22. Exotic species have the potential to make vast and unanticipated changes in the systems where they are introduced. This dynamic has played out enough times to become a basic ecological principle. If you're from North America you've seen the effects of zebra mussels, european starlings, autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, purple loosestrife, kudzu, asian carp and rusty crayfish. You should have an intuitive idea about how profoundly exotic species can affect the landscape. They can decimate a fishery and drive other species extinct. What exactly is an exotic species? It's a species that's a newcomer to an ecosystem. It has no long-term evolutionary history in an ecosystem. It's a species to which other native species are not adapted. Notice a few things here: 1. The critical point here is that evolution and adaptation are what make an animal "exotic". 2. Being an exotic speices has nothing to do with whether or not that species was spawned in that setting. An animal is not "native" simply because it was born in a particular setting. Nor does having a few dozen or even a few hundred years of existence in an ecosystem make a species native. Evolution takes a long time. I realize there are still a few people around who's skin crawls at that word "evolution". If that word is causing you to reject this idea...please hear me out. Even the Young Earth Creationists acknowledge the existence and importance of natural selection. The environment favors some traits and eliminates some others. That's evolution. That's what we're talking about here. Natural resource management has wasted enough time accomodating our accumulated societal stupidity on this point. 3. Some of you with a broad knowledge of the effects of sportfish introductions will find it a bit ironic that conservation principles for smallmouth bass would inveigh against exotics since smallmouth bass themselves have often been that exotic species negatively affecting local species. True. Sport fish can be exotics just like everything else. Movement of sport fish outside their native range to "improve" fisheries is an exercise for the simple minded. Don't do it. If you do, you're taking unecessary risks with systems millions of years old. A lot of bad names could be applied to people who do that. Just assume here I've called those people those names and save me the trouble of actually doing it. Smallmouth bass and other sport species have a native range too. Introduced species like spotted bass and Eurasian milfoil and rusty crayfish and various diseases have had demonstrably negative effects on smallmouth bass fisheries inside their native range. The hope of these philosophies is that they foster an ethic that keeps sport species inside their native ranges and out of habitats where they would not normally occur without human intervention. Reverse bigotry against a species in its' native range merely because it is a warm-water top predator sport fish predator is tiresome in the extreme. Smallmouth bass are potent exotics outside their native ranges. That doesn't invalidate their role as a native species inside their range. 4. Not every exotic species will cause havoc. Some will. The tools available to make predictions in ecosystems are weak. Assume species transfers outside their native range will cause problems. Resist their spread. If economical means become available to contain them, employ those. 5. Modern fisheries may have a positive role to play. In a few limited cases it might be possible to target and reduce exotic species with catch and kill tactics. Anglers can reduce the average size and sometimes the density of fish populations in the right context. This may be an especially viable approach in low production areas where a high total fishing pressure can be brought to bear on the system. 6. Always keep in mind that a "naturalized" population of exotics is still doing damage. Problems from exotics don't go away in a generation or two. It generally takes a long, long time for local ecosystems to adapt to new and influentital species. In most cases the damage is irreversible. Superfund projects spend hundreds of millions of dollars to remove radioactive toxins from the environment. Genes and species have vastly longer half-lives than that.
  23. 18. We support measures designed to prevent, contain, mitigate or eradicate exotic species that threaten smallmouth bass or the systems they inhabit. We do not support control measures that represent a significant threat to the continued survival of native species.
  24. Rich, I don't expect all of the philosophies will generate discussion but I would like to get them on the web page and open for discussion if anyone has an interest. As you say, supporting the DNR is a "no brainer", but lo and behold there are things here to be said. It's pretty clear that not every one knows what the philosophies are. AND...input from forum readers has already improved one of the philosohpies. The others might benefit as well. John, the Indiana Smallmouth Alliance is an admirably focused and efficient organization. Your DNR is fortunate to have you indeed.
  25. To fish or not to fish, that is the question. If Socrates was right that the unexamined life is not worth living, then perhaps the same can also be said for the unexamined past-time. Our "Raison d'etre" guides personal choices and keeps thinking people relevant and well adjusted. A fishing organization fishes. It does so proudly. It will act to ensure continued and improved opportunities to do so and it does so with the knowledge that the impetus to fish comes from a heritage deeply embeded in the human experience. To some, this philosophy may seem like pointless navel gazing. Those who were raised with fishing view it as something as natural as wearing a hat or watching a parade. You just do it. Why would you need to affirm it? Most people reading a fishing blog have probably already made the decision to fish or support fishing. Those who are paying attention, however, also realize that large demographics in most developed nations disdain recreational fishing as dirty or immoral. Some view it with indifference. Others profit from activies that degrade it. The decision to fish and to affirm the value of fishing exacts a cost both on the individual and society and is by no means trivial. A fishing organization must be able to explain the decision to fish to society at large. The number of people who fish has been declining steadily in recent decades. The progeny of urbanization have become more and more disconnected from the natural world and most have lost the knowledge and disposition that allows them to be successful anglers. Once they don't participate, they don't care. The growing number of people who don't value fishing have an ever increasing ability to degrade or eliminate fishing opportunities for others. If anglers cannot articulate, defend and promulgate their view of fishing to non-anglers, their critics almost certainly will. So yes, a fishing organization should be able to affirm the value of fishing to all comers. What then is the value of recreational fishing? The answer will vary for every individual. Herein I gladly offer my own reasons for participating in this most anachronistic sport. 1. I enjoy it. Whatever else is said about why someone participates in recreational fishing has to begin here. To some degree it really is this simple. A universe full of happy people is better than a universe full of unhappy people. If something within reasonable moral constraints makes you happy...DO IT!! 2. Fishing teaches me about the natural world. I have spent quite a few years working in and studying aquatic ecology. I've read the texts. I've read the journals. I've sat in the lectures and the seminars and conversed with the leaders in the field. In all of those contexts my experiences as an angler have served as an able guide for my perceptions about aquatic ecosystems, communities and fish. The feeding ecology, habitat requirements and behavioral patterns of fish are the intellectual grist of anglers. Their means to address these questions aren't necessarily scientific but they are supported by vast amounts of observational time and data. Wise biologists selectively tap into this knowledge. Early ecologists such as Stephen Forbes drew heavily on commerical and recreational fishers to gain his early insights into large river ecology. Many, many other biologists have done so and continue to do so as a matter of course. Beyond this, I tend to approach fishing as a game...a scientific game, really. Each cast tests a hypothesis. Each trip is a sampling of the environment. Every step, paddle, knot, retrieve, purchase and itinerary revolves around the game of predation. 3. Fishing connects me emotionally to ecosystems. The fishing "game" has been played for tens of thousands of years. That's long enough for evolution to have affected the human genome and our response to environmental cues. Certainly there should have been times that selective pressures chose effective fishers over ineffective fishers. Given the recent body of neurological research that connects our endorphin levels to human behavior and evolution, it makes perfect sense to reward our bodies with a flush of pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters when we do something likely to promotes the survival of the organism. To be sure, I don't know if the emotional response to fishing is a cultural artifact or if there is something deeper and genetic at work. I do know I have seen people from a vast array of cultures exhibit similar and powerful emotional responses when they catch fish. Their heart-rates increase. They smile. They laugh. They become flushed or excited. I do it too. If that response was knit into the genes of our ancestors, it could easily have carried down to the present day. As time wears on and our "fitness" has become more and more disconnected from our ability to hunt and fish. Any genetic basis for an emotional response to fishing may gradually unravel and fade. We would do well to ask ourselves if that is a good thing for our long-term survival as a species. Humans emerged from the ecosystems that sustain fish populations. Do we really think we can survive for the long-term without them? Is this really a piece of our history that we want to leave behind?
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