Rock bass in the Boneyard!!

Let's set some context here. Boneyard Creek is a mess.

http://tbrksmth.blogspot.com/2008/06/ums-waterworks-class-in-boneyard-creek.html

Yet look what my daughter and I found there this weekend!

Rock bass (Ambloplites rupestris) tend to avoid badly degraded streams. Never the less, there he was in a stream with a reputation as little more than a chemical sewer for the U of I School of Engineering. No, it's not big, but it's there! The Illinois Natural History Survey data base doesn't list this species for Boneyard Creek.

Rock bass are common in the larger Saline Branch downstream. Maybe this fellow is only a transient waiting for high water to clear downstream...or...

...could it be that upstream restorations are having a postive effect and attracting more species into Boneyard Creek? Hopefully this fellow is a sign that conditions are now adequate for them to survive. No one can know why this particular fellow made the swim up stream, but it is nice to look at him as a sign of hope. Further reclaimations have been planned for the Boneyard in the city of Urbana.

Maybe things are looking up!

We'll see if this little guy hangs in there over time.

Measuring fish: the scientific lie

For several years the lab regularly electrofished Lake Shelbyville, Illinois. During that period, I had regular opportunities to interact with the angling public. One common interaction involved some guy who had caught a big fish while angling and wanted us to estimate the size or weigh it on our scale.

Why oh why does everyone need to know how big their fish is?

We'd weigh it for him and invariably he'd come away disappointed.

Why do that to yourself? Your wife won't tell you, but a scale sure will...

It's not that big.

Guys apparently have a genetic proclivity for over-estimating the sizes of things. A few of us have managed to get their basic nature under control. Personally, I'm not sure I have. Statistically...you're pretty questionable too. Or are you? If you're not measuring, you don't know. If you're measuring badly, you don't know. This is a case where liars have virtue on their side because at least they know...

....it's not that big.

Some people like to weigh fish and some like to measure lengths. I've done both, but these days I'm a length guy. I actually think I'm pretty good at estimating size. Hopefully I can say without that without bragging. When I've checked my guesses they usually fall within a half inch of the actual size (a half inch less for your fish, a half inch more for mine). Works for me.

How exactly do you measure a fish's length? Everybody knows that, right? You just..sort of...ummm...measure them...with a tape measurer or a ruler or marks on your rod. Hmm. But do you measure them with their mouths closed or open? Do you measure to the tip of the tail or the fork? Do you pinch the tail closed? Do you lay them down or hold them in the air? If you hold them in the air, do you measure them from the bottom lip or the to lip?

Those of us who aren't creeling fish with minimum sizes or slot limits can get out of the habit of precise measurements pretty quickly (and some of us who are creeling fish are in for a rude awakening when the Conservation Police Officer actually checks our stringer). There is most definitely a specific, singular, unalterably right way to measure fish.

Of course if you're just measuring for ego, a quick check by holding a fish next to marks on a rod is good enough. This is catch and release after all. Check the fish quickly and get it back in the water. There is of course, the peculiar problem of catching a fish so long that your hand has moved by the time you've lined his tail up at the butt of the rod and your eyes have traveled up to the end of its' snout (when this happens, be sure the hand holding the fish drifts up, not down). A few double checks are usually in order because of that peculiar phenomena. It's important to realize this is not a precise method and is not the scientifically correct way to measure fish.

To measure fish the right way you must use a clean wet calibrated surface and perpendicular "bump" board affixed at the "0" of the ruler. Then you lay the fish on the ruler and "bump" the fish's nose into the board. From this position you can scientifically measure standard length, fork length or total length. Standard length is the distance from the nose to the end of the caudal peduncle. Fork length goes to the end of the fork in the tail. Total length is the distance to the end of the tail with the tail pinched (the tail pinch adds 1/4 inch).

The biologist's method is the gold standard for fish measurement techniques.

Yet not many anglers I know bother with the tail pinch when measuring their fish. Surprisingly, the angler's measurement when taken honestly is actually shorter than total length measured by a biologist. There's about a 1/4 inch difference between a biologist's measurement and a fisher's rod mark from the top lip to the tip of the unpinched tail (did I mention I measured that 1/4 inch?).

Why, you may ask, if anglers are so driven by ego would they leave that 1/4 inch on the table?

Maybe they consider it cheating. Maybe they don't know that's the actual way to measure total length. Maybe they're going to lie anyway and the only reason they're checking at all is to see how big of a lie they can get away with and still post the photo. Maybe they're too mature to care about that last 1/4 inch.

Personally, I make no special claim to maturity but I think anglers aren't really all that concerned about how big their fish is. Sure it's nice to tangle with something hefty. If I ever land something of a record size I may well go to all of the trouble to have it weighed and recorded (but so far, I've never had the chance). If I ever get an opportunity to fish some rarified stream where brutal monsters live, I'll probably take that trip...

...but the angler's gold standard isn't really based on size.

I think many of us place more value on that fish caught in a local stream that we could see in our mind before we ever made the cast. That fish that hit the lure just when we knew he would. That fish that confirms that...yes...we know these fish. We know this place. We are a part of this.

We value that fish caught by a novice we've just taught. We value the light that goes on when some one new to the water begins piecing together how a stream works and how fish behave and how all the parts of that magnificent puzzle begin to fit together...

...or that fish caught in a stream where fish have been strangers for far too long.

...or that first fish.

...or that last fish.

Those fish are big, big fish.

Every time.

Lepomis spp: Rooting for the little guy

The sunfish family (Centrarchidae) contains the most economically important freshwater sportfish in North America. The Micropterus species, or black basses, fill the glamor niche. They bear the load of the fishing tournament industry. They're the species that get caught and released instead of fried for supper. I suspect most of the big fake fish hanging on dens and living rooms around the USA are probably one of those species (especially largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, which thrives in warm water reservoirs). The black basses are definitely the big, bad boys on the block

It's little wonder the Lepomis spp. are often overlooked. These are the smaller, poorer relations in the sunfish family. When they are considered at all, it is normally as something to eat. From a utilitarian perspective, they are food, bait or forage for larger fish.

To a naturalist and biologist, they are much, much more.


The two fish above comprise the backbone of recreational sportfisheries in the Mississippi River basin. They are the predator and prey of choice in ponds and reservoirs and their distribution has expanded greatly with their popularity in that role. Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides, in the background) are an engulfing predator, limited in their diet primarily by the size of their gape. Bluegill (Lepomis machrochirus) use habitats similar to those preferred by largemouth bass and one would think they were the preferred prey of largemouth bass. Ironically, no.

Notice in this picture how the bluegill in the foreground has raised its' dorsal spines. Bluegill assume that posture from time to time, but they always have their dorsal spines raised when largemouth bass of predator size are in the tank with them. Those spines make bluegill a wide, prickly, difficult meal. Bass apparently know this and when abundant populations of soft-finned species like minnows or herring are available, largemouth bass will eat those instead.

Bluegill are highly adaptable in their foraging and habitat preferences. With small mouths and fine gill rakers, they are designed to eat smaller diet items. They will consume almost anything but are most often found with aquatic invertebrates and zooplankton in their stomachs. In lakes with open water, they often have a slightly longer, narrower shape. Where weeds are dense, their bodies are thicker and shorter. Biologists have hypothesized these shape differences are a genetic or developmental trade-off between the faster, sleeker open water shape and the more manouverable form more suited for tight manouvering in weeds.

Notice too the strong vertical bars and the dark spot on the rear of the soft dorsal fin. No other Lepomis species has that combination of characters. Remember that. The specimen below is a breeding male of the same species. Again. Vertical barring and the black spot on the soft dorsal. Those two characters found together will never let you misidentify a bluegill of any size no matter where you are.

This is a warmouth (Lepomis gulosus). Widely distributed and tolerant of low oxygen conditions, warmouth occur from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. This particular one is quite large (0.9 lbs; not a record, but close enough to check). Despite the closer genetic relationship to bluegill, the (war)mouth has reverted to an engulfing bass-like size.

Above is another warmouth of more typical dimensions.


Another Lepomis species with a larger engulfing mouth is the green sunfish (immediately below). Lepomis cyanellus has a rather marginal reputation among the sunfish. Green sunfish are tolerant of competition and pollution of many types. They also thrive in habitats with little available refuge. As a result, green sunfish are the only individual species to receive a negative score in the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI). The IBI is a rapid assessment technique that uses fish diversity to evalute a water quality based on fish species diversity. Normally, more species in a site indicates higher quality habitat...unless the species in question is a green sunfish. The greater the proportion of green sunfish found in a stream, the more likely it is to be a degraded body of water and the lower the IBI score for that site.

Somehow, that doesn't seem entirely fair. Green sunfish can also dominate an area simply because they are extremely aggressive toward other fish. They dominate hard structures and erosion control boulders by driving other small fish out of the most desirable cavities and refuges. Any kind of sampling on rip-rap immediately drives down an IBI score simple because it will be dominated by green sunfish!

Generalizations are all dangerous...including this one.

Long ear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) have smaller mouths like a bluegill, but tend to fare better in clear water streams than in lakes. The specimen is either an immature male or a female.

THIS is a breeding male longear sunfish. Spectacular, eh? There's quite a bit to be said about the reproductive strategies of this species etc...

...but I think I'll park it here for now. There are two more local species of sunfish that I'd like to post and a few more within an easy drive. Maybe it's time for a little safari.

The Philosophies of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance: Doing it right

What follows here are the 19 articles of the "Philosophies of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance". Rationales for the philosophies are included in the following sections. During my tenure as Science Director of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance (ISA) the philosophies were discussed, amended and adopted by the executive officers as a guide for conservation activities. The rationales as presented here are mine and mine alone. I was the author of the philosophies and the primary instigator of its' adoption. It's a piece of work in which I take some pride.

The philosophies represent a workable template that any species-specific conservation group could find useful to position themselves as a cooperative, effective and ecologically sound organization. Conservation efforts need a philosophical and scientific foundation. As someone who has worked as a conservation scientist and with grass roots conservation groups, this point seems obvious enough.

Grass-roots conservation groups often have significant leverage with local political and regulatory bodies. Fisheries in particular have a strong supporting scientific literature and fishers have the potential to do either great good or great harm to the aquatic habitats where they exist. The mere desire to "be a good citizen" through a fisheries conservation or management programs has often met with disaster through unintended consequences to local ecosystems and fisheries. The philosophies provide a blue-print for avoiding those problems and focusing conservation efforts on programs that are likely to succeed.

The key points the philosophies embrace are these:

1. The document affirms sportfishing and attempts to mitigate its' negative ecological effects. This includes a focus on conserving native fisheries and avoiding reliance on unsustainable practices such as artificial propagation.

2. It supports a biodiversity-oriented mind-set that looks beyond the interests of fishing for a single species and focuses instead on the ecosystems and evolutionary processes that support those species. This implicitly supports the biodiversity of non-game species.

3. The document provides a general approach for species-oriented fishing groups such as Trout Unlimited and the Smallmouth Alliance to find common ground and work cooperatively to support the overall biodiversity of specific watersheds.

...or at least it could in principle.

The future of this document and of fisheries in general remains somewhat in question. Hunter-gatherer sensibilities have long ago ceased to be relevant to human survival. The benefits of recreational fisheries as an anachronism of that time may be worth preserving, but there is no guarantee that will occur. The modern temperament seems in many ways ill suited to recreational fisheries. It may be simple to dunk worms or randomly throw lures into bodies of water, but truly understanding the systems, species and biology of a fishery is a long, complicated process. The short attention spans, disaffection with nature and intellectual sloth of modern populations may be better suited for video games and golf.

Worse, the societal influences that preserve recreational fisheries in the short term don't always mesh with its' preservation in the long term. Government and private programs pumping artificially-produced fish into crippled ecosystems are unsustainable shadows of what fishing was meant to be. Yet the public is often distracted to believe that if they are catching fish...any fish...all is well. This document takes the view that much more is possible and needed in modern recreational fisheries. It may well be that modern fishers have neither the patience or foresight to adopt that view.

Still, these principles did at least superficially pass muster in a diverse grass-roots organization. They were adopted and generally agreed upon. With minor adjustments they could form the template for other groups with similar agendas. This is a body of work I feel may be of general worth in the proper context. To that end I offer them as a list here. The rationales follow in later sections of the blog, beginning at 19 and working back to #1. The written rationales are a work in progress. Please be patient as they are gradually added

Discussion (and criticism) is encouraged. Please feel free to comment and discuss.

The Philosophies of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance

1. We affirm the value of smallmouth bass fishing and the right to continue to enjoy and participate in that heritage.

2. We strongly affirm the value of catch-and-release smallmouth bass fisheries and all practices that limit stress to fish during capture, handling and release. We chose to release our catch to minimize negative effects on the species and to help ensure the quality and survival of the fish and the fishery into the future.

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.

4. We support smallmouth conservation and fisheries inside their native range and do not support smallmouth fisheries outside their native range. Some rivers are historically smallmouth habitat and some rivers are not. The native smallmouth bass range is defined as lakes, rivers and drainages containing smallmouth bass in pre-European settlement conditions. Natural range expansions are accepted and welcomed as the normal functioning of ecosystems. Human-induced expansions of this range or expansions due to reduced water quality from anthropogenic activity are viewed as negative events given that they can impair or extirpate other species inside their native ranges.

5. We affirm that smallmouth bass with unique genetic histories should be preserved as part of the heritage of the species, and for the genetic resources they represent to meet future environmental challenges.

6. We affirm that where possible, smallmouth fisheries should be supported by natural reproduction within their native range. The stocking of fish reared in artificial or aquacultural environments into natural ecosystems should be limited to areas where habitat is limiting or where unique populations may be at risk and no obvious alternatives exist.

7. We affirm that smallmouth bass conservation activities should be undertaken in light of the integrity of populations of other species and ecosystems in an area. Propagation or enhancement activities that might threaten the survival other native species or ecosystems are not supported.

8. We affirm the precautionary principle, choosing first to do no harm and seeking thorough, careful, scientific guidance to evaluate the impact of new technologies, activities or approaches to natural resources before embracing them.

9. We support access for anglers to public resources and we support projects, regulations and legislation that protect and enhance that access.

10. We affirm the right of private property and respect the rights of owners of that property.

11. We support habitat enhancement designed to sustain natural processes that have historically supported smallmouth bass and their accompanying species within a watershed.

12. We support technologies, legislation and mitigations leading to reductions in point source and non-point source pollution and likely to enhance the growth, density, and sustainability of smallmouth bass populations.

13. We support the removal of low-head dams wherever data is available to indicate riverine habitat improvements will result from that removal.

14. While recognizing the importance of agriculture and the need for infrastructure to sustain this industry, we support efforts to avoid or undo channelization and other channel modifications that impair riparian and smallmouth bass habitat. We further support efforts to find common ground between agricultural interests and anglers to enhance the value and function of rivers and lakes in agricultural landscapes.

15. We support marketing activities designed to enhance the sport of recreational fishing where that marketing is targeted toward responsible angling and conservation that does not threaten the diversity, sustainability or aesthetics of natural resources.

16. We support reservoir fisheries for smallmouth bass where those reservoirs are in the native range of smallmouth bass. We do not support the creation of new dams on permanent waterways for the purpose of recreational fisheries.

17. We support research and data gathering efforts that enhance the understanding of smallmouth bass biology and the biology of species and ecosystems that have historically sustained or coexisted with smallmouth bass.

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.

19. We support governmental agencies and their enforcement of creel, seasonal, and site-specific regulations and profess a desire to work with those agencies to meet future regulatory challenges.

Point 19: Support your local DNR

19. We support governmental agencies and their enforcement of creel, seasonal, and site-specific regulations and profess a desire to work with those agencies to meet future regulatory challenges.


This is about simple practicality.

Whatever romanticized notions you have about the free-market, please, please please put them on the shelf when it comes to natural resource management.

There is not a free-market option to your local DNR. Period. Privatized fisheries on private land are fine and desirable as a sector of the recreational fisheries market (as long as they don't negatively impact the fisheries around them), but that's not where most of us live. Public fisheries managed for the common good are the only way most people can have a quality fisheries experience. If we fail there, we fail altogether.

Your local DNR struggles with all the complexities of ecosystems plus low levels of funding, critical patrons with unrealistic expectations, unmitigated political pressure, schizophrenic job goals and (in recent years) marginal job security. Cut these people a break. These are highly trained professionals in almost every case doing a high quality job under difficult circumstances.

Roll up your sleeves and HELP them. Get to know your local district biologist. Offer to help sample. Help them get equpiment. You'll find out things you never knew about your local fisheries and you'll be supporting an organization that's doing the best it can for your local stream.

Point 18: Resist exotics

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.


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...hold still for your beating. Even the bottom-of-the-barrel Young Earth Creationists with enough intellectual accumen to tie their own shoes 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. Get over it. Grow up.

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. Get over it. Grow up.

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.

Point 17: Continue basic research

17. We support research and data gathering efforts that enhance the understanding of smallmouth bass biology and the biology of species and ecosystems that have historically sustained or coexisted with smallmouth bass.

Ecology is a very young science and Fisheries Ecology still has a lot to learn.

On the other hand, it's the best thing we have going. Just because someone can catch a bass doesn't mean they know butkus about how that bass got here or what keeps it alive or how to keep fisheries safe and sustainable. You need science for that.

Get on the American Fisheries Society web page. Read. If you have a specific topic of interest, you can do web searches through the abstracts of Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. Those are highly readable documents. You'll learn a lot, and the information won't be flimsy hearsay.

Point 16: That's enough reservoirs, thank you

16. We support reservoir fisheries for smallmouth bass where those reservoirs are in the native range of smallmouth bass. We do not support the creation of new dams on permanent waterways for the purpose of recreational fisheries.

Apparently people need reservoirs sometimes. It's possible that the rivers I love would be terrible fisheries if reservoirs did not exist because the vast numbers of people who fish reservoirs would beat my pristine little river to a pulp. That's a point I call the "play pen effect" and I'm not sure if it is valid or not.

What is valid is that reservoirs flood prime hardwood bottomland, alters riverine habitat and put species at risk of extinction. Destroying native populations of fish is stealing from your kids.

What kind of shmuck steals from their kids?

Point 15: Don't be a prostitute

15. We support marketing activities designed to enhance the sport of recreational fishing where that marketing is targeted toward responsible angling and conservation that does not threaten the diversity, sustainability or aesthetics of natural resources.

Let's be clear. It is as natural as breathing for people to buy and sell things.

But not everything is for sale.

Companies that profit from fisheries can be beneficial to the resource they exploit...but they can also be rapacious ghouls for whom the bottom-most depths of hell are reserved. Have some sense. Think about what the resource can bear. Drawing more and more people into fishing is not a sustainable marketing strategy. There are limits to fishing that superceed the market.

Natural fisheries can't support the same percentages of the human population that they once did. If you think as a fisher you are on the same footing as Daniel Boone making your way in some untrammeled wilderness you are tragically, violently, ignorantly, obstinately wrong.

Every year, the number of people we ADD to the world is greater than the modal number of people in the world over the history of our species. Human populations have exploded. The pressure we put on natural resources these days exceeds anything ever witnessed before or since. Catch and release and well enforced regulations keep modern recreational fisheries intact. Throwing more and more people into that mix would undo even that.

Enjoy what we have. Preserve what we have. Don't sell it out by creating more exotic fisheries or building more reservoirs on top of free flowing rivers or pursing whatever hare-brained scheme you think can make a fast buck.

Leave the prostitutes to Vegas. They don't have much water there so they can't do nearly as much harm.

Point 14: Minimize agricultural impacts

14. While recognizing the importance of agriculture and the need for infrastructure to sustain this industry, we support efforts to avoid or undo channelization and other channel modifications that impair riparian and smallmouth bass habitat. We further support efforts to find common ground between agricultural interests and anglers to enhance the value and function of rivers and lakes in agricultural landscapes.

Point 13: Damn dams

13. We support the removal of low-head dams wherever data is available to indicate riverine habitat improvements will result from that removal.

Point 12: Reduce pollution

12. We support technologies, legislation and mitigations leading to reductions in point source and non-point source pollution and likely to enhance the growth, density, and sustainability of smallmouth bass populations.

Prozac, ammonia, nitrate, silt, hydrocarbons, mercury, viagra, estrogenic compounds, sulfate, phosphorus, chloride, BOD, arsenic, E. coli, nitrite, phenolic compounds, pesticides, herbicides, tritium, thorium, PCBs, selenium, organochlorides...

...more coming soon.

Point 11: Support thoughtful habitat enhancement

11. We support habitat enhancement designed to sustain natural processes that have historically supported smallmouth bass and their accompanying species within a watershed.

Point 10: Respect private property

10. We affirm the right of private property and respect the rights of owners of that property.

"How are you today, sir?"

"Fine, thanks, is there something you wanted?"

"Yessir, I was going to fish tomorrow morning and I wondered if I might be able to get permission to fish in your creek."

Long pause.

"Well, my nephew fishes down there, and I think we'd prefer to keep it for him."

"I understand sir, that's an excellent creek. I'd be careful too if I had property on it. I do thank you for your time."

"So what do you fish for?"

"Hmm? Oh. I mostly fish for smallmouth bass when I fish in rivers. I've fished upstream from you in the park and I thought this area might be a good place to try."

"Oh there's not much in there to catch you know."

"Actually, I normally do pretty well upstream. I had some almost as big as 17 inch last year and I'll generally get 15 or 20 over 12 inches on a good day."

"You don't say."

Long pause.

"Well do you keep what you catch?"

"No, I'm strictly catch and release for smallmouth around here. They can't handle much fishing pressure, especially in a small stream like this. So I let them all go and I don't give away my spots."

"I see. Well I've never caught anything that big in there. Sometimes that river barely flows in the summer. Now my friend Jack will walk the river at night and catch those big flatheads with his hands. He walked all the way from the park down to this bridge one night. Got four."

"Your friend is a braver man than I. I think I'll stick with my bass."

"I think you have the right idea. You can park on our side of the bridge tomorrow. Be sure and stop by and tell us how you did."

"Thank you, sir. I'll be sure to do that."

Point 9: Anglers need legal access

9. We support access for anglers to public resources and we support projects, regulations and legislation that protect and enhance that access.

Point 8: The Precautionary Principle

8. We affirm the precautionary principle, choosing first to do no harm and seeking thorough, careful, scientific guidance to evaluate the impact of new technologies, activities or approaches to natural resources before embracing them.

Point 7: You're not the center of the universe

7. We affirm that smallmouth bass conservation activities should be undertaken in light of the integrity of populations of other species and ecosystems in an area. Propagation or enhancement activities that might threaten the survival other native species or ecosystems are not supported.

Point 6: Natural reproduction beats stocking

6. We affirm that where possible, smallmouth fisheries should be supported by natural reproduction within their native range. The stocking of fish reared in artificial or aquacultural environments into natural ecosystems should be limited to areas where habitat is limiting or where unique populations may be at risk and no obvious alternatives exist.

Point 5: Conserve genes

5. We affirm that smallmouth bass with unique genetic histories should be preserved as part of the heritage of the species, and for the genetic resources they represent to meet future environmental challenges.

Point 4: Native fish have special status

4. We support smallmouth conservation and fisheries inside their native range and do not support smallmouth fisheries outside their native range. Some rivers are historically smallmouth habitat and some rivers are not. The native smallmouth bass range is defined as lakes, rivers and drainages containing smallmouth bass in pre-European settlement conditions. Natural range expansions are accepted and welcomed as the normal functioning of ecosystems. Human-induced expansions of this range or expansions due to reduced water quality from anthropogenic activity are viewed as negative events given that they can impair or extirpate other species inside their native ranges.

If you only remember one of the philosophies, remember this one.

This is huge. This is big. This is what separates the grown-ups from the children. This is the tipping point between recreational fisheries as an asset to society and recreational fisheries that think the world revolves around them.

Why is the choice to support native fish and not support non-native fish such a big deal??

Think for a minute about the urban children who reply "egg cartons and milk jugs" when asked about the source of eggs and milk. For a child, that's a charming misconception caused by inexperience.

But now scale up that scenario and point it at the fishing world. Where do the fish in your streams come from? Misconceptions here are much less charming. One of the critical answers to that question involves a slippery but critical dichotomy. Fish in our streams and lakes have either:

1) been there as a part of a population and ecosystem that has existed in that place for a long period of time, or...

2) they were introduced to that location recently from some other place.

The difference between those two kinds of fish can be as profound as the difference between a chicken and an egg carton.

A population living in a given location over a long period of time has had an opportunity to adapt to that location. They have been affected by the selective forces at work there. The temperature, pH, seasonal changes, predators, prey, diseases, toxins, hydrology and more have all acted together to produce fish that can handle those conditions. Fish recently introduced from another location have not had the benefit of that sorting process.

Furthermore, the species surrounding recently introduced fish also have not had the opportunity to adapt to them. This is why introduced Nile perch can tear through dozens of species of cichilds in Lake Victoria and render them extinct. This is why sea lamprey virtually extirpated native lake trout from Lake Michigan. When the Welland Canal was opened, sea lamprey gained access to populations of lake trout that had never seen a lamprey before. The effect of sea lamprey feeding on lake trout was devestating above the Welland Canal. Below the canal in Lake Ontario where sea lamprey had always occurred, the effects of sea lamprey have been relatively minor.

The difference was adaptation. Adaptation is a fact of history and not a physical property. It is difficult to measure. Its' effects are difficult to anticipate. Shuffling species around to areas where they have no long term history starts rolling the dice. It's a gamble as to what the effects of those introductions will be. In some cases that gamble has not paid off for smallmouth bass.

In Texas, hybridization between non-native smallmouth bass and native Guadelupe bass has resulted in rampant hybridization. Mixing between those two species and the resultant loss of pure strain Guadelupe bass in most of their range. In the Canadian Sheild, introduced smallmouth bass have pushed lake trout out of shallow foraging areas during the spring. As a result, growth and survival of lake trout has declined and those fisheries have been degraded. In the American west, introductions of smallmouth bass in conjunction with habitat alteration have had a negative effect on native populations of salmon and steelhead. Similar negative interactions have occurred between smallmouth and brooktrout, whitefish and probably other species as well.

The fish in our rivers, streams and lakes don't come from a hatchery or a truck or a DNR. They come from the ecosystems where they evolved. Native fish pose little or no risk in the systems where they evolved. Once they've been moved to locations to which they are not adapted and that are not adapted to them, all bets are off. Species introduced into new environments always run the risk of disrupting those environments through predation, competition, disease and parasite transfer, hybridization and physical alteration of the environment. The results of those introductions can be loss of species, fisheries and ecosystem functions.

Ok. Enough of that.

This seems to be a widely accepted point. Exotics are bad. Fine. What about the caveats? What about those counterpoints that always arise?

Counterpoint #1: "Who cares about a few extinctions or ruined fisheries if I get to fish for my beloved smallmouth bass."

Stop yourself. If this idea even formed in your head you belong back in kindergarten. Public waterways are not our personal toys. Species and ecosystems and populations thousands or millions of years old are not something to be altered forever just because you like the way one particular species pulls on your pole.

Most systems have fine native fisheries that are adapted to that location. Learn to appreciate those. Conserve smallmouth bass inside their native range. Don't conserve them where they aren't native and they have significant potential to cause problems.

Counterpoint #2: These fish were introduced in "lake x" a hundred years ago. They're a native now.

A fish might be "naturalized" and begin reproducing in a given location, but that doesn't mean they've stopped causing problems. Evolution and adaptation can begin right away, but they operate over very long time periods. One hundred years is barely a tick on the clock and no human introductions in recent history have resulted in "native" fish in any real sense of the word.

Counterpoint #3: Lake or stream X is so degraded and full of so many exotics that there's no point in sorting out natives from exotics.

Ok. Yes. That may be functionally true for a given time and place. But what happens when an exotic fish is removed from the system where it is stocked? What happens when they escape your control?

Counterpoint #4: ...but we're just stocking this one lake/river/stream.

No, probably not. Floods and accidents happen all the time. Escapes are inevitable as time stretches on. Where did Asian carp in the Illinois River come from? They came from some one in Arkansas who used the statement above about their aquaculture ponds. Fish transfers are permanent and usually regional.

Counterpoint #5: What about the "good" non-natives?

The states of Arkansas and Missouri love their non-native trout. West-coast striped bass fishers are perfectly delighted someone has moved them from the Atlantic Ocean to San Francisco Bay. The West Coast salmonids in the Great Lakes are a source of happiness to tens of thousands. High plains fisheries consist primarily of stocked fish.

Certainly some strong economic arguments can be made in defense of those fisheries. Their ecological effects seem to be minor and limited (although that's less certain in some cases than others). Surely there are times a non-native fishery is just as desirable as a native one.

Hypothetically, that's possible. However, that possibility is tempered by the fact that we can't know ahead of time if a species introduction will cause extinctions or environmental perturbations. Even though the effects of the non-native introductions cited above seem to be minimal, we don't really even know that with certainty. New species and sub-species are being discovered all the time.

Those introductions are risky propositions every time. The more conservative path is avoid them...

...and certainly the more desirable focus for conservation efforts is on native fish and not introduced fish.