Tim Smith

Pasted below is the abstract of an article that points rather convincingly to the role of largemouth bass in the decline of Topeka shiners. Given the small range of Topeka shiners, it could well be argued that management for the promotion of a largemouth bass fishery in these rivers could lead to the decline and possibly the extirpation of this fish species. Is this a case where a minnow is more important than a bass? Should this stream be managed for the minnow species at risk of extinction preferentially to the bass fishery? Influence of Instream and Landscape-Level Factors on the Distribution of Topeka Shiners Notropis topeka in Kansas Streams S. J. Schrank, C. S. Guy, M. R. Whiles, B. L. Brock A. Kansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, 205 Leasure Hall, Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-3501, B. E-mail: chrisgy@ksu.edu. Send reprint requests to CSG., C. Southern Illinois University, Department of Zoology, Carbondale, Illinois 62901-6501, D. Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-3501. The Topeka shiner Notropis topeka has declined in abundance throughout its historical range in the central U.S. As a result, this minnow was listed as federally endangered in 1999. The objective of our study was to quantitatively assess instream physical, chemical, and biological parameters and landscape-level factors influencing the distribution (i.e., extant or extirpated) of Topeka shiners. We sampled 26 streams in the Flint Hills region of Kansas: 12 sites where Topeka shiners are extant; and 14 sites where they are extirpated. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to test whether variables were different between extant and extirpated sites. Mean catch per effort of largemouth bass in stream pools was higher at extirpated sites, and species diversity by trophic guild and richness in stream pools were higher at extirpated sites. Stepwise logistic regression was used to develop a model to predict whether Topeka shiners were extant or extirpated. Number of small impoundments per watershed area, catch per effort of largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides in pools, and length of pool were the only significant variables in the logistic model. Our model correctly classified 83% of extant sites and 85% of extirpated sites. In a landscape-level analysis of 111 streams, only number of small impoundments per watershed area was significant in the logistic model. These results provide predictive tools to assess instream and landscape-level characteristics for habitat management and possible reintroduction of Topeka shiners in Kansas Flint Hills streams. Submitted: July 5, 2000; Accepted: November 3, 2000

Mike, congratulations and job well done. The ISA is exceptionally lucky to have you as conservation director.

Those lions are hanging around and they're so bloated from eating that buffalo that they're unlikely to move for a few more days. Last night a herd of cape buffalo moved in and drove the lions away from the watering hole... ...once those lions get hungry again there might be some more action.

Something like those sponges might have a use, but probably not on the average street where those kinds of problems will probably crop up. Of course the big problem with storm water is when it is combined with sewage and overwhelms the capacity of the treatment plants to treat the sewage. In general, there has to be more retention. The subdivision retention laws were a big step forward in this regard. They've actually improved the hydrodrology of some places, dampening out flood peaks.

http://www.swimmingholes.org/OKSPRI3.jpg ...and smallmouth bass.

No trout... ...and the answer would be same for a system where people wanted to introduce smallmouth bass outside their range.

Smallies on torpedos in December in Illinois??? Is it just me, or does that seem just a mite unusual...

After this year's dink-fest, I don't know if I should post this, but here's what I would have used in the past compared to what I'll be using next year... This year... 3" silver shallow-diving rapala #2 and #3 mepps, matched to water conditions Texas rigged crayfish plastics Jerk baits Next year... White spinnerbait White spinnerbait White spinnerbait

Mike P. Sorry I missed this earlier. In general, cooler temperatures reduce mortality in fish. The preferred time to handle fish for commercial purposes is fall and spring when water temperatures are low. Oxygen levels are generally higher in the water and early in the winter the fish are also fat from the fall feed. Here are two pictures of fish from the same system between early September and early November. Look how much the condition improves over that time span. Here's September Here's November There is one study on walleye that I found that did not show any mortality effects of catch and release on walleye. However, physiological recovery from stress tends to be longer in cold water and any fish who's tissues are allowed to freeze is likely to have long-term problems. If you're catching smallmouth on a day that's a problem, you're almost certainly ice fishing. http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/mnr/pubs/fishing/..._guidelines.pdf

I like the madtom idea. I have a friend who fishes the Susquehana in Pennsylvania and madtoms are his secret weapon for smallmouth there. He swears the smallmouth can't stop themselves from attacking them. Here are some photos if you think you might want to try this species. Upper left, slender madtom (borrowed from state of Missouri web site). Upper right, margined madtome (not native to Illinois, but this photo gives you a sense of their texture and common body posture. This photo is from the state of North Carolina). Bottom, stonecat (borrowed from the University of Michigan. This species is probably the most common madtom in Illinois). Also in Illinois are the brindled madtom, mountain madtom, tadpole madtom, freckled madtom and northern madtom. [ Most madtoms live in the spaces between boulders in riffles where they eat invertebrates and very small fishes (we use cinderblocks to help us keep field equipment in place in streams and madtoms often take up residence in the spaces inside the blocks along with crayfish). Madtoms are small, flat and slender and they undulate quite a bit when they swim. They're not especially powerful swimmers. They're designed to hug the bottom, fit into small spaces and they don't come out into the open very often. Stonecats can approach 12" in length, but most of them are 4-6 inches long. Most madtoms have venom in their pectoral and dorsal spines.

Well said, Scott. http://www.ies.wisc.edu/research/wrm00/econsafe.htm http://www.theconservationfoundation.org/t...e_grove_dam.pdf http://www.michigandnr.com/PUBLICATIONS/PD...fDamRemoval.pdf http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-1...80303--,00.html http://bataviansforahealthyriver.org/dam_fact.htm Here's more if anyone wants it. One scour hole vs. miles of properly functioning river is well worth the trade.

...and Rich NEVER DID fish those flies!!

I wouldn't modify your opinion too much. Trends can be suggestive, but without a controlled experiment, it's all guessing. Certainly there are good guesses and bad guesses and clearly impossibly wrong guesses, but at the end of the day, there are assumptions buried in these interpretations and they're still guesses. You can comb through data and find things that are pretty obvious (for instance, in 1989, you can see the 1+ gizzard shad in the largemouth diet by the gap between the smaller and larger fish), but other things are more speculative. Maybe the large bass would have eaten small shad if they could in '88 and at the dam, but the small shad were all offshore (there's no data to support that idea, but it COULD be true). Maybe feeding on shad in schools in open water makes this trend unique. Maybe this, maybe that...The exact processes that led to these trends aren't known. This kind of data lends itself to hypothesis formation, but my "interpretation" (and all observational data) is only that, a hypothesis. You could make your own as well. In general, fish would try to optimize your energetic intake, but balance that against exposure to predators, breeding status, and habitat requirements such as temperature and oxygen. Their level of hunger will also influence their foraging choices. I am guessing that in this case the bass were pursuing a hunting strategy that included things other than gizzard shad when the gizzard shad were less abundant. In those conditions they were less likely to initiate an attack on smaller, less profitable prey because they had search images or habitat use that focused on different prey. It took a stronger inducement to get them to attack smaller gizzard shad. When the shad were abundant, the bass shifted to a forage strategy that focused specifically on shad and their "opportunistic" nature kicked in. The smaller shad were closer to their search image or habitat use and they didn't hesitate to take them.

Bass do pursue crayfish but they also focus on soft-rayed fish like minnows and shad. Fathead minnows, for instance, can't even live in the same system with them for very long. Bass outstrip their reproduction and drive them to extinction or near to extinction. Gizzard shad are easy pickings while they're small, but eventually become too large to be consumed. Bluegill are tougher prey. Spiny, with a lower energetic return and a size refuge for adults, bass eat them but would prefer to go after just about anything other than bluegill. Maybe I can dig out some of my pond data sometime that shows how bass almost eliminated some species of crayfish in experimental ponds, but didn't even put a dent in the bluegill populations. Let me see if I can find some citations, Mike.

Impressed. Very.

I would have to post all the diet data from the report to show you the bluegill-shad trends, that part isn't in these particular graphs. I'm deducing a shift in foraging strategies because bluegill behave very differently from gizzard shad, using more cover and less open water. The main thing to look at here is that prey size increases more predictably with predator size when the prey are abundant. Focus on the bigger bass...400mm to 500mm (16-20 inches) and up. Look at the sizes of shad that were in their guts in the low shad abundance graphs (1988 and Station 6) vs. the high shad abundance graphs (1989 and Station 3). There aren't any or many small shad (i.e. <100mm) in the guts of big bass in the low shad abundance years. You can also see the pattern of stronger linear relationships between prey size and bass size in the R2 values. When those are higher, the stronger the relationship.

Mike, I was just wondering...when the Dr. shows you ink blots, how many of them look like rats? Steve, There are actually quite a few nice trends in these graphs, but look first at the big bass in the 500 mm area. In years and places with abundant shad forage, big fish ate both big prey and small prey. When shad were not as abundant, big fish took only big shad. Other data show that big bass also had fewer alternative diet items in their guts when shad were abundant. When shad were less abundant, they had higher proportions of bluegill in their diet, probably indicating a shift in foraging strategy and search patterns. So the answer (in this case) to "Do bass prefer larger prey" is "Yes, but less so if there's a strong foraging focus on one specific prey type." So does this apply to smallmouth?

The question of whether or you need to use big lures to catch big fish seems to be a favorite on this forum. I've been meaning to dig out this old data for some time to contribute to that discussion. The data presented here are from Smith and Wahl 1993, Development of Reservoir Shad Assessment Methods (IDOC report). The graphs show largemouth bass diet data (collected with smooth edged acrylic tubes without harming the fish) from boat electrofishing in Lake Shelbyville, Illinois. The comparisons are all total length of the bass (x axis) vs. total length of gizzard shad found in the stomachs of the bass (y axis). This graph was from data collected in electrofishing runs near Bo Woods (station 3) at the upper end of the lake where the three year average CPUE (catch per unit effort) for gizzard shad was about 9 fish a minute. This graph was collected in electrofishing runs near the COE boat ram at the dam (station 6) where gizzard shad CPUE was around 4 fish a minute. This graph is from data collected throughtout the lake in 1988, the big drought year with a lakewide annual gizzard shad CPUE of 3 fish per minute. This graph is from data collected throughout the lake in 1989, a year with an average gizzard shad CPUE over 10 fish per minute.

Yep. That's the one. First stocked in 1887, about 1/10,000th the time the salmon have been there. http://pnwhandbooks.orst.edu/Dept/ODFW/inforeports/97-3.pdf http://www.wildlands.org/AIA_ucpaper_final.pdf

I think those two sites have native smallmouth populations, Mark, but your point definitely does apply elsewhere in Canada. Algonquin Provincial Park in northeastern Ontario does not have native smallmouth and they're causing problems there too. The smallmouth that have been stocked in the lakes have impaired the lake trout fishery by driving the lake trout out of the productive shallow areas during the spring. Think about this from the perspective of the natural history of the system. If the steelhead fishery in Lake Michigan were wiping out the smallmouth in Wisconsin, or had somehow made it's way into Illinois and done the same, we'd be pretty pissed too. I think our smallmouth are safe from Chester. He's advocating harvest of non-native smallmouth out west only. Here in the Midwest, smallmouth are native and our conservation stance for catching and releasing smallmouth is appropriate. Smallmouth are our fish, our prestige fishery...they belong here. Not there.

I assume the state stocked them in, Rich. Most western reservoirs are stocked to resemble eastern fisheries (because the anglers know eastern fish and there are only a few species of sportfish in the west). There are similar issues with pike in Lake Davis in California (that's the one they've tried to kill out the pike several times without success). Smallmouth are all over California and elsewhere in the west. I remember trout fishing in the Merced and getting really excited when a massive fish started following my lure in a plunge-pool just outside Yosemite...until I realized it was a smallmouth. That was a blow to the gut to see them in a famous western trout stream like that. That's not where they belong.

I like the sound of this.

Thought this might stimulate some discussion. Tim, Thanks for you nice letter -- It's in our paper this Sunday. I love catching smallmouth -- they rank just after rainbow and brown trout -- but there are too many of them in the Columbia. Why don't you come out next June -- bring friends! -- and enjoy some great surface popper fishing? We could even have a fish fry later on. Two Columbia tributaries -- the John Day River and the Yakima River -- also have world-class smallmouth fishing. I've had 50-fish MORNINGS on both rivers. I've never fished in Illinois, although I've visited Chicago several times -- usually in January! I have fish smallmouth in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and it was fabulous. Your website and forums are very good. Chester Allen -----Original Message----- Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 7:55 PM To: Allen, Chester Subject: no protection for Columbia River smallmouth bass I'm the science director of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance and I saw your article about smallmouth fishing in the Columbia dated September 22, 2006. We are very serious about protecting and conserving smallmouth here in their native range in the MidWest, and especially Illinois. However, I support your stance that the smallmouth of the Columbia River don't deserve protection. Smallmouth bass are exotic species in the Columbia and they're salmon killers. I'm surprised to see in your article that your state officials don't agree. Catch and release is for native fish, not invaders. Come see our website at http://www.illinoissmallmouthalliance.com/about_us.html and check out our forums for some first-rate smallmouth flyfishing advice. Cheers, Tim B. Smith

I've been running this web cam on the background since you pointed it out on here, Gary. So far I've seen jackals, hyenas, baboons, impala, zebra and an elephant. Even when it's running in the background, the cricket sounds in the background are pretty cool. Often you can even hear the wildlife so you know to take a look.

Ohhh man...don't show me that. I need to rake leaves today!!