A post asking for recommendations on a canoe prompted me to write this. I've been paddling canoes on Ozark streams (and elsewhere) since about 1968. I've paddled a LOT of different canoes, and have owned 6 different tandem canoe models and 5 solo models over the years. I've paddled everything from a 19 ft. square stern Grumman to an 11 ft. Old Town Pack solo. Aluminum, glass, Kevlar, poly, Royalex, even a cedar and canvas canoe one time. I'm a canoe guy. I don't particularly like kayaks, and think a solo canoe is a FAR better craft for pleasure floating and for fishing. I'm also a student of the canoe--I read everything I can on them, read all the reviews on different models...in short, I think I know a thing or two about canoes. And here's what I know: there is no perfect canoe. There is only the canoe that suits what you think is most important in your paddling. Stability? Maneuverability? Speed? Tracking ability? Weight? Beauty? There are canoe models that are great at every one of those things, but none that are good at all of them.
First consider material. Your choices are mostly a few different plastic constructions, fiberglass, Kevlar composites, and aluminum. All have advantages and disadvantages. The first canoe I ever owned was a 15 ft. Grumman aluminum, and it served me very well for more than 15 years--and is still being used by my brother-in-law on his pond today, nearly 50 years later. Yup, aluminum is durable! But it is noisy, and it is cold to the touch in the winter and hot to the touch in the summer. And worst of all for Ozark streams, especially those like the upper Jacks Fork when the water gets a little bony, aluminum sticks to rocks, gravel, and even logs. It doesn't slide over much of anything very easily. And aluminum canoes are pretty vanilla in design, okay for most things, not great at anything. An aluminum canoe is serviceable, durable, and reasonably inexpensive. Plastics--everything from the Coleman whatever the heck that plastic is to high end Royalex. Most common is the polyethylene sandwich such as Old Town Discovery models. It's fairly heavy, scratches easily but is reasonably durable, and fairly inexpensive. Like aluminum, the poly sandwich canoes are difficult to mold into more sophisticated designs, so like aluminum these canoes are pretty middle of the road, okay at everything, not great at anything. Biggest advantages over aluminum are that they are quiet, slide over obstacles easily (especially if you treat the hull with something like Formula 303 or even Armor-all regularly), and are more comfortable to be in and around in hot or cold weather. The Coleman type plastic is heavier, less rigid (hence the "plumbing"--internal bracing--in Coleman canoes), doesn't slide quite as easy, is terrible to mold into anything but a barge. Other than that it's pretty cheap and pretty durable. Royalex used to be the top end plastic canoe material...lighter in weight, fairly durable (though like the Discovery material it scratches easily), and while still having some of the molding problems of the other plastics, there were canoes being made of Royalex that were better designs for various uses than the vanilla plastics and aluminum. Unfortunately, Royalex was patented by Dupont, which was the sole manufacturer of the sheets that canoe makers used. Dupont decided it wasn't profitable enough, stopped making the sheets, and refused to sell the patent. So new Royalex canoes are not being made anymore. I was fortunate enough to buy a new solo and a new tandem canoe in Royalex right before it became unavailable. With the demise of Royalex, canoe companies were scrambling for a replacement. One company came up with a material called T-Formex, and they are selling it to a few other manufacturers. I haven't paddled a T-Formex canoe yet, but so far the reviews are good...all the advantages of Royalex, apparently. It's also pretty expensive. Glass and Kevlar composites are not very common on Ozark streams, but are actually pretty decent materials for our rivers. They scratch easily, and they don't take to being pounded on rocks, but not many Ozark streams have a lot of really rocky rapids. They are also somewhat noisy...not as bad as aluminum but not as quiet as plastic. The advantages are mainly that these materials lend themselves to complex, sophisticated canoe designs, and they are light in weight. The fastest, best-tracking canoes are made of these. They can be expensive. My second tandem canoe I owned was a glass composite canoe that was a speed demon, but there was a steep learning curve on how to get the thing to turn. It was a joy to paddle through long pools, and a pain to wend your way through a narrow, fast, twisty riffle! But I now own several glass solo canoes that are maneuverable enough for my tastes, and are still a joy to paddle through the frog water.
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Sunday, May 17, 2020
Choosing a Canoe for Ozark Streams
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Salamanders
A recent post on Facebook asking to identify a salamander got me curious as to the difference between salamanders and newts, and a little research provided some very interesting answers to several different salamander questions.
There are several families of these amphibians. There are four families of entirely aquatic salamanders, those who live their entire life cycles completely in the water and cannot live long out of the water. The most common species in Missouri are mud puppies and hellbenders (if you can call hellbenders common). Those two are in separate families, but both live their entire lives underwater. You'll never see one out of the water unless it was taken from the water, and it won't live long out of the water. The two look very different, but the biggest real difference between them is that mud puppies have external gills, feathery reddish or pinkish structures that stick out from their necks. Hellbenders have internal gills with small gill openings to let the water in and out--and oddly, one gill opening is often completely closed.
The other two families of entirely aquatic salamanders are sirens and amphiumas, both of which are long and eel-like. Sirens have ONLY forelimbs, and they are very small. Amphiumas have both fore and hind limbs, but all are very small. Both are mainly confined to ditches and swamps of Southeast Missouri, and most people will never see one.
The newt family is interesting. It is represented by only one Missouri species, the central newt. And what makes newts different is that they go through THREE life stages. There is the entirely aquatic larval stage (kinda like a tadpole is the larval stage of a frog or toad). But before turning into an adult, a newt goes through an intermediate stage where it becomes an eft, and lives entirely on land. It remains an eft for two or three years, and THEN changes to the adult stage, and moves BACK into the water, becoming entirely aquatic. So you might see an eft out of the water, but you won't see an adult newt anywhere but in the water (they prefer fishless ponds).
There are two main dry land salamander families, the mole salamanders and the lungless salamanders. The adults of both families spend most of their time in moist but not wet places, like underneath forest debris and rocks--some live in caves. They do NOT need water except as a place to lay their eggs, as the larval stage IS aquatic, like frogs and toads. Members of the mole salamander family tend to be fairly large, thick-bodied, with thick tails. As you can guess from the name, some species live much of their lives underground. But mole salamanders have lungs and breathe like we do, more or less. Lungless salamanders, as you can guess, DON'T have lungs, they take in oxygen through their skins. They tend to be small and thinner bodied with long, thin tails.
So the next time you encounter a salamander somewhere out of the water, don't assume it needs to be IN the water. They do not. Just give it a chance to get under something, or leave it alone. They don't like bright sun and will get dried out if exposed to it too long, but ordinarily all they need is shade.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Goggle-eye--the rock bass species of the Ozarks
Growing up in the Missouri Ozarks and being from a family of avid anglers, I learned the names of common fish early on...or at least the Ozark names. One of those common fish was the goggle-eye, as we called it. When I was in junior high school, finding school too easy and tending to get in trouble now and then because I was bored and had all my work done, I was sometimes given a "special" project to keep me busy, and because I was already interesting in drawing and painting, it was often something to do with those pursuits. One such project was for me to do a "book" illustrating the common fish species of Missouri, and that's when I first learned that what we called a goggle-eye was a rock bass.
At that time, back in the early 1960s, there was just one rock bass in the Ozarks--or at least all the rock bass were lumped under a single species. But sometime later, biologists discovered (or perhaps just decided) that there were a total of three rock bass species in the region, the "typical" rock bass--northern rock bass, the shadow bass, and the Ozark bass. Shadow bass had been recognized as a separate species back in the 1930s, and was generally considered the "southern" rock bass. But the Ozark bass wasn't recognized until 1977. Most anglers, if they even heard about this, ignored it, because all three were pretty similar in appearance. So similar, in fact, that the average angler probably never noticed the subtle differences, or attributed them to individual variation.
Complicating the issue was that all species of rock bass have the ability to rapidly change color and especially pattern. This is a fairly common attribute among freshwater fish. It is governed by cells called melanocytes. Humans also have melanocytes; they are the skin cells that produce tanning effects. But these fish melanocytes hold special structures called melanosomes, which contain dark pigment. The melanosomes in each cell have the ability to contract to the center portion of the cell, or expand out to the edges of the cell. When they expand to the edges, they turn the color of that skin cell darker. Other basal skin cells in fish also govern color; these are called chromatophores, and operate the same way as the melanocytes, but contain various other pigments. So the fish can rapidly become darker or lighter and have dark markings appear or disappear with the operation of the melanosomes, and change overall color or color in certain portions of the body by the chromatophores. Whether the fish can do this voluntarily, or whether it is an automatic response to various stimuli, is an open question. But we know that external factors such as light levels, turbidity of the water, and the character of the fish's surroundings can cause color changes, as well as internal factors like stress and excitement. Many fish also change color (usually getting brighter or more strongly marked) during spawning season, and can rapidly change color when in the actual act of spawning.
When it comes to the rock bass species, they are masters at these color changes, especially the dark and light changes that make their markings appear, disappear, or get more or less prominent. Thus it's difficult to attribute the shape or prominence of various markings on the fish to it being one species or another. There are unchanging structural characteristics that are slightly different in each species, but actually, if nothing else, you can tell which species you've just caught from where you caught it, with a few exceptions. In the early days, according to many biologists who have studied them, there were NO rock bass in the Gasconade or Osage river systems (including streams like the Niangua and Big Piney) and all the rock bass in those streams come from stockings in the 1930s and 1940s. Because those fish are the same species as Meramec River system rock bass, it's surmised that they were collected from the Meramec River or its tributaries and transplanted. 1931 was the first year that rock bass were documented in the Big Piney, and they were not documented in the Niangua until 1940, and in lower tributaries of the Osage like Tavern Creek and Maries River until 1964!
Why were there no rock bass in these two river systems, when they were found over the rest of the Ozarks? The most likely explanation has to do with the connections between river systems. The centers of distribution of northern rock bass are the upper Mississippi river system above the mouth of the Missouri, the Great Lakes, and the Ohio river system (which includes the Tennessee system). It's easy to see the connection from the upper Mississippi to the Meramec, which enters the Mississippi a fairly short distance below the mouth of the Missouri. But in order to get to the Gasconade and Osage, rock bass would have had to travel up the Missouri River a good distance. And historically, the Missouri was one of the more turbid rivers on earth, far muddier than the upper Mississippi above the two rivers, which, although much shorter, flowed considerably more water. Perhaps the Missouri was just too muddy and silty for rock bass, which generally live in clear water, to travel to reach the Gasconade and Osage. But the Mississippi probably diluted the mud in the Missouri from where the two come together, making it possible for rock bass to move down it to the Meramec and the short, direct tributaries of the Mississippi downstream along the eastern border of Missouri.
As for the other two species, shadow bass are mainly a southern "model" of the rock bass. Their center of distribution is the rivers from Mississippi to Georgia that flow south into the Gulf of Mexico; the Ozarks is actually an outlier in their range, separated from the other places they live. But the streams in which shadow bass live in the Ozarks do have a connection to the lower Mississippi, because the shadow bass is native to tributaries on both sides of the river in Mississippi and Louisiana. The streams where they live in the Ozarks--Castor, St. Francis, Black, and Arkansas river systems--all end up in the lower Mississippi well down into Arkansas (or at least they once did; Castor has been diverted into the Mississippi just south of Cape Girardeau, MO, by the Diversion Channel).
The Ozark bass is a bit of a special case, however. The upper White River system, above the mouth of Black River, is the only place on earth to which it is native. So it must have evolved in these rivers. Why it is separate from the shadow bass, which is native to the Black river system, is a mystery, since Black River runs into White River at the edge of the Ozarks and has a clear connection to the upper White. All these species in the Ozarks would probably have become established in their present ranges at the end of the last ice age. Previously, even though the ice never reached the Ozarks (stopping just north of the Missouri River), the climate would have been much different and perhaps too cold to support them. Assuming they evolved long before, there were probably sanctuaries where they remained during the cold times, such as the southern portions of the Tennessee river system for northern rock bass, and the Gulf Coast streams for the shadow bass. But perhaps the ancestral Ozark bass remained in the upper White and tributaries during the cold climate, and had time to evolve into a different fish.
So, if you are fishing the Meramec river system (Meramec, Big, Bourbeuse, Huzzah, Courtois), Gasconade system (Gasconade, Big Piney, Osage Fork), Osage system (Niangua, Maries, Tavern), or any of the direct tributaries to the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, the fish you will catch will be a northern rock bass (scientific name Ambloplites rupestris). If you are on the Castor River system (Castor, Whitewater), the St. Francis system (St. Francis, Little St. Francis, Big Creek), the Black system (Black, Current, Jacks Fork, Eleven Point), or the Arkansas system in Arkansas and Oklahoma (Big Piney Creek, Mulberry, Illinois), you're going to be catching shadow bass (Ambloplites ariommus), and if you're on the upper White River system (North Fork, Bryant, Beaver, James, Finley, and the Buffalo, Kings, and Crooked Creek in Arkansas) you will catch the species that happens to ONLY be native to that river system, the Ozark bass (Ambloplites constellatus). Only on the streams of far southwest Missouri (Elk, Big Sugar, Spring) will there be a bit of a question. Theoretically these streams, which eventually flow into the Arkansas River by way of the Neosho and Grand rivers, should hold shadow bass. But apparently at some point there were enough northern rock bass transplanted to them that the fish in them appear to have genetic characteristics of both species.
There is actually a fourth species of rock bass, though it is far from the Ozarks. The Roanoke bass is native only to some drainages above the fall line in Virginia and North Carolina.
Below are scientific illustrations I've done of all three Ozark rock bass species, and descriptions of their distinguishing characteristics. The illustrations are done from photos of these fish that I have taken of fish I've caught, and modified where necessary to more clearly show the color and structure of these fish and to include some color patterning that I've seen in other individuals.
As for the other two species, shadow bass are mainly a southern "model" of the rock bass. Their center of distribution is the rivers from Mississippi to Georgia that flow south into the Gulf of Mexico; the Ozarks is actually an outlier in their range, separated from the other places they live. But the streams in which shadow bass live in the Ozarks do have a connection to the lower Mississippi, because the shadow bass is native to tributaries on both sides of the river in Mississippi and Louisiana. The streams where they live in the Ozarks--Castor, St. Francis, Black, and Arkansas river systems--all end up in the lower Mississippi well down into Arkansas (or at least they once did; Castor has been diverted into the Mississippi just south of Cape Girardeau, MO, by the Diversion Channel).
The Ozark bass is a bit of a special case, however. The upper White River system, above the mouth of Black River, is the only place on earth to which it is native. So it must have evolved in these rivers. Why it is separate from the shadow bass, which is native to the Black river system, is a mystery, since Black River runs into White River at the edge of the Ozarks and has a clear connection to the upper White. All these species in the Ozarks would probably have become established in their present ranges at the end of the last ice age. Previously, even though the ice never reached the Ozarks (stopping just north of the Missouri River), the climate would have been much different and perhaps too cold to support them. Assuming they evolved long before, there were probably sanctuaries where they remained during the cold times, such as the southern portions of the Tennessee river system for northern rock bass, and the Gulf Coast streams for the shadow bass. But perhaps the ancestral Ozark bass remained in the upper White and tributaries during the cold climate, and had time to evolve into a different fish.
So, if you are fishing the Meramec river system (Meramec, Big, Bourbeuse, Huzzah, Courtois), Gasconade system (Gasconade, Big Piney, Osage Fork), Osage system (Niangua, Maries, Tavern), or any of the direct tributaries to the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, the fish you will catch will be a northern rock bass (scientific name Ambloplites rupestris). If you are on the Castor River system (Castor, Whitewater), the St. Francis system (St. Francis, Little St. Francis, Big Creek), the Black system (Black, Current, Jacks Fork, Eleven Point), or the Arkansas system in Arkansas and Oklahoma (Big Piney Creek, Mulberry, Illinois), you're going to be catching shadow bass (Ambloplites ariommus), and if you're on the upper White River system (North Fork, Bryant, Beaver, James, Finley, and the Buffalo, Kings, and Crooked Creek in Arkansas) you will catch the species that happens to ONLY be native to that river system, the Ozark bass (Ambloplites constellatus). Only on the streams of far southwest Missouri (Elk, Big Sugar, Spring) will there be a bit of a question. Theoretically these streams, which eventually flow into the Arkansas River by way of the Neosho and Grand rivers, should hold shadow bass. But apparently at some point there were enough northern rock bass transplanted to them that the fish in them appear to have genetic characteristics of both species.
There is actually a fourth species of rock bass, though it is far from the Ozarks. The Roanoke bass is native only to some drainages above the fall line in Virginia and North Carolina.
Below are scientific illustrations I've done of all three Ozark rock bass species, and descriptions of their distinguishing characteristics. The illustrations are done from photos of these fish that I have taken of fish I've caught, and modified where necessary to more clearly show the color and structure of these fish and to include some color patterning that I've seen in other individuals.
Northern Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris)
This is the native species of the Meramec Basin, the Gasconade and Osage river systems, and direct tributaries of the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau. Rock bass in the streams of the southwestern corner of Missouri may also have many northern rock bass characteristics. The main characteristic of this rock bass that distinguishes it from the shadow bass is the coloration of the anal fin. In these northern rock bass it is almost unmarked except for a thin black margin, especially on males, while in shadow bass the anal fin is usually heavily mottled and may lack the dark margin. The dorsal and caudal (tail) fin of northern rock bass may also have a black margin. Other than that, northern rock bass tend to have almost unbroken rows of dark spots, one for each scale, on their sides. They are a little less likely to be marked with the large, irregular blotches that often make these fish look like they are dressed in camouflage, but those dark markings can show up very strongly at times, depending upon the fish's mood and stress levels. There are a few other distinguishing characteristics that one can find if so inclined, including scale counts--northern rock bass have 36 to 47 scales along the lateral line, and 21 to 25 scale rows across the breast from pectoral fin to pectoral fin. Northern rock bass grow the largest of the three species, attaining lengths of over 12 inches; the Missouri record still stands at 17 inches and 2 pounds 12 ounces. The specimen in this illustration was taken on Huzzah Creek, a Meramec River tributary.
Shadow Bass (Ambloplites ariommus)
This is the native species of the Arkansas, Black, St. Francis, and Castor river systems. It also occurs in clear drainage ditches in the Bootheel of Missouri, and the rock bass of far southwestern Missouri may show shadow bass characteristics. The main distinguishing mark is the heavy mottling of the anal fin. The rows of dark spots on the sides are usually interrupted; some scales will be lacking their spot, and in certain color phases the black spots may be almost indistinguishable from the background color, especially very darkly "camouflaged" fish. Shadow bass tend to stay more darkly and heavily marked with large, irregular blotches than the other species. Shadow bass usually have 41 or fewer scales along the lateral line. They have larger scales on their breasts--15-18 scale rows from pectoral to pectoral. Shadow bass are the smallest of these species, seldom growing larger than 9 inches. This specimen was taken on the St. Francis River.
Ozark Bass (Ambloplites constellatus)
This species is native only to the upper White River system, including all streams flowing into the White River above the mouth of Black River. The anal fin is largely unmarked and does not have a black margin, which distinguishes it from the other two species. The spots on the sides do not form obvious rows but are almost randomly scattered and sometimes irregularly shaped, giving the fish a freckled appearance, and are always prominent, never obscured by the camouflage pattern. Ozark bass are also noticeably more slender than the other species. They have 40 to 48 scales along the lateral line (usually more than 41 scales), and have 20 or more scale rows across the breast. Ozark bass can attain lengths of better than 10 inches; the Arkansas state record "rock bass" was an Ozark bass, and weighed 1 pound 8 ounces. This specimen was taken on the North Fork of the White River.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
The opening chapter of my book
Home Waters
On
a fine Saturday afternoon in late April the year of my tenth birthday, I left
my house with fishing rod and small tackle box strapped to my bicycle. Pedaling north one block and east four blocks
on the small-town back streets, I turned left onto the shoulder of the highway
and coasted downhill for a half mile to the high iron bridge. There I dismounted from the bike, pushed it
around the guard rail and under the span, and clambered down the steep bank to
the water. Big River was flowing
strongly, green and clear in the sun, and the water was cold against the pair of
cheap plastic hip waders I'd recently purchased with money from mowing
lawns. I selected a new lure from my
meager supply of tackle, a Rapala floating minnow imitation, and tied it onto
my line with a loop knot that I'd learned about by reading my grandpa’s outdoor
magazines. I waded along the bank downstream to the riffle, where I knew I
could get across the river without going in over my waders. Safely reaching the gravel bar on the other
side, I walked up along the edge of the gravel to where I could move out into
the river and cast toward the other side.
I
slowly made my way up the shallow stream as the afternoon passed, catching
mostly longear sunfish and green sunfish, or “sun perch” and “black perch” as I
knew them back then. I can still remember
the deep pocket in the little indentation along that clay bank; I could point
out exactly where it was as I write this, well over a half century later. I can remember the little lure splashing the
surface and diving in a seductive wiggle as I started the retrieve, and I
definitely remember the smallmouth bass that slammed into the lure.
I
hope that by this time the statute of limitations has run out, because bass
season was closed, but when I finally grasped the lower jaw of that glistening,
bronze-backed bass, I couldn't bear to release it. It was about 16 inches long, the biggest
smallmouth I'd ever caught. I slipped
that poor fish down the left leg of my waders and immediately started downriver
to my bike. Pedaling up the long hill on
the highway shoulder was a lot more difficult than coasting down it had been,
and I was fearful that somebody would stop me and see the illicit fish. But I reached home safely and ran into the
house to show my parents my trophy.
Dad
admired the fish for a bit, saying that it sure was a nice smallmouth. And then he took me by the shoulders, looked
me in the eyes, and said, “Son, let that be the last bass you keep out of
season.”
It
was.
Big River, just downstream from where I caught that first smallmouth, from an old photo.
In
the next few years I spent a great deal of my free time on the river. My dad and grandfather were both avid anglers,
but Grandpa was mostly interested in catching crappie in the local lakes, and
my dad was a reservoir bass fisherman. I
loved fishing with Dad in his big aluminum johnboat on the larger Ozark lakes,
but there was something about the river and those powerful little smallmouth
bass that the fat largemouth in the big waters just seemed to lack. Dad, who had fished the river in his younger
days, understood my attraction to it, and when I was 13 years old, he surprised
me one day with a cheap 12-foot aluminum johnboat that I could use to float Big
River. For two years, my friends and I
cajoled our parents incessantly to drive us and that boat to the river and pick
us up at the end of the day, and when we got our driver's licenses, they must
have breathed sighs of relief. The
little boat left aluminum scrapes on the rocks of Big River for many miles.
I
replaced the boat with my first canoe in 1970, the year I graduated from high
school. By the early 1970s, the biggest
thing in angling was the explosion in popularity of tournament bass
fishing. I was attending the local
junior college, working in a supermarket in the summer, and fishing in the
local bass club tournaments nearly every weekend. I still floated and fished the rivers, but I
had dreams of becoming a professional bass fisherman. The river was a different place to fish and
those smallmouth were special, but tournaments were held on the big lakes. At the time, plans for a high dam on the
Meramec River, little more than an hour away, were in the news, and we bass
club members spent many hours poring over topographic maps of the area of the
river to be inundated by the new lake, enthused by the idea of a big reservoir
so close to home. We gave little thought
to the fact that a river would be lost to the lake.
However, I was reading about the Corps of
Engineers project from the perspective of the people who opposed it and wanted
the river to remain as it was, and I began to harbor vague feelings that something
important would be lost if the Meramec was flooded. I wondered how I would feel
if my favorite stretches of my “home river”, Big River, disappeared. Yet the lure of a great new fishing lake
remained strong.
My
change of heart came about in an odd way.
I'd developed interests in geology and archeology, and one day I saw an
advertisement for a book called “The Buffalo River Country”, by Ken Smith. The Buffalo, the most spectacularly scenic of
all Ozark rivers, had been designated the nation's first “National River” a
couple of years before, and the book had been instrumental in recruiting
advocates for the National River idea as opposed to the dams that had been
planned for the river. But it was mainly
the advertising copy, which noted that the book covered the river's geology and
archeology, that intrigued me enough to order it.
When
the book came in the mail, I immediately opened the package and started paging
through it. In the vernacular of the
times, I was “blown away”. The photos in
that book were amazing, not so much because of their exceptional quality, but simply
because of what they depicted. I had
never known that an Ozark stream could be so beautiful. Somehow it made me realize for the first time
the treasure that all these little rivers of the Ozark region represented. I suddenly understood that even Big River had
intrinsic value, as ordinary as I'd always considered it to be and as abused as
it was in the old lead mining area where I had grown up. And it made me rethink the Meramec Dam issue.
By
1977 I had graduated from college and was married and teaching art in Advance,
Missouri, and the Meramec Dam controversy was at its height. I had become firmly against the dam, but
though I'd floated several of the most well-known Ozark rivers, I'd yet to
float the section of the Meramec that was slated for destruction. My wife and I decided it was time to finally
visit the endangered section and see for ourselves what we stood to lose. We had become active in environmental
organizations, including the Ozark Society, the group that had been among the
staunchest defenders of the Buffalo, and we had written a few letters against
the Meramec Dam, but we wanted to be able to talk about it from firsthand
experience. So, in the summer of 1977 we
set out on a two-day trip from Onondaga Cave to Meramec State Park.
The
put-in at Onondaga back then was at an old "hog trough" low water
bridge, so named because the parallel tracks of lengthwise planks upon which a
vehicle’s tires were supposed to run, laid atop a layer of narrower planks
crossways to the span, must have resembled a wooden hog trough to the old
timers. These bridges were made entirely
of timber, down to the thick pilings buried in the gravel bottom which
supported the span, and to anyone knowing the power of floods on streams such
as the Meramec, the fact that they survived as long as they had was
surprising. We clattered across the
bridge and parked on the north bank just downstream, where we launched the
canoe and left our vehicle for a canoe livery to pick up and move to our
take-out the next day.
We
shoved off, with my wife holding down the stern and paddling while I fished. As soon as we left the campground area I
picked up a rod, and on the second cast I caught a nice 16 inch largemouth
bass. It was followed soon afterwards by
a 13 inch smallmouth.
We
soon came to the first bluff, high on river left and mostly obscured by
trees. Then as the river swung across
its valley, a beautiful 80 foot wall of limestone came into view, fronted by a
narrow ledge of alluvial soil lined with a single row of big sycamore trees,
the layered rock strata oddly bowed upward in the center of the cliff. The river was narrow and intimate there,
trees arching overhead and shutting out the weak sun of a slightly overcast
day. Then the river split, with most of
the water plunging through a narrow chute to the right and past a cave with a ten-foot-high
opening in the cliff before sliding beneath an overhanging bluff rising nearly
a hundred feet out of the river. Water
dripped off the rock, dotting the quietly swirling river surface.
Emerging
from that narrow channel, we came to a wide stretch of river with a hundred-foot
bluff set back from a narrow strip of bottom field cleared to water's
edge. At the margin of a water willow
bed in a shallow pool, a large bass ripped into my spinnerbait, and I had
visions of a trophy smallmouth, but when it turned broadside at the surface
near the canoe I could see the black band down its side and knew it was a
largemouth. Nevertheless, a 19-inch
river largemouth bass was a fine catch and merited some photos before releasing
it.
We
reached Campbell Bridge, five miles below Onondaga, after passing four more
bluffs from 80 to 160 feet high. Each
one was different, but they were equally gorgeous, framed in bankside trees and
clearing blue skies. I switched lures,
and immediately had a huge smallmouth, well over 20 inches, follow the white
wobbling bait to the canoe before slashing at it as I lifted it from the
water. Before the day was over I'd catch
nine bass from 13 to 17 inches on the white lure, but none like that one.
The largest fish of the first day, a 17-inch smallmouth.
We
passed beneath what I would later learn was Vilander Bluff, one of the highest
and most scenic cliffs on the entire river, a buff and blue-gray streaked rock
face rising over 200 feet. I knew from
my topographic map that two caves, Dry Cave and Little Onyx Cave, emerge from
the bluff, and we stopped to climb up the steep talus slope to Little Onyx,
hearing the eerie moaning sound of pigeons.
The birds clattered out of the cave as we reached it. We didn't venture far into the gloom and were
soon back on the river.
More
bluffs, more interesting riffles, and wildlife including three mink and three
species of herons, combined with the good fishing to keep us entertained in the
three more miles down to Blue Springs Creek.
By the time we reached the low water bridge at the mouth of the creek,
the afternoon was waning. We slipped
through a breach torn in the bridge, which was another wooden hog trough affair
with planks missing or tilting crazily. We supposed there was little reason to
repair these bridges when they might soon be buried under the lake. Searching for a campsite, we passed up
several good bars because there were other people around the summer cabins that
lined the river near the bridge, and finally picked an intimate spot on a
rather brushy bar a mile downstream.
Setting up camp, we heated some canned beef stew and enjoyed a hot meal
in the orange light of the setting sun.
A nearly full moon gradually replaced the dying glow to the west, and we
retreated to the tent and listened to the babble of the nearby riffle and a
serenade of screech owls before dropping off to sleep.
We
awoke in the cool, gray dawn, the river shrouded in mist, and ate a leisurely
breakfast of hot oatmeal and tea, waiting for the promised sun to burn off the
dew before folding the tent and loading the canoe. In the eight miles to our take-out that
second day, there would be fewer bluffs, but the river remained very
attractive, with its mixture of riffles, fast runs, and long pools. Banks lined with rocks and old, slick,
submerged sycamore logs appealed to my fishing instincts, and I experimented
with different colors of the wobbling lure that had produced the day before,
finally settling on a green and black combination. By the time we stopped for lunch just below
Sappington Bridge, I'd released 10 bass from 12 to 17 inches. But the river was saving its best for near
the end.
The
warm sun and the quiet buzz of summer insects in the riverside trees invited
drowsiness, and soon my wife was dozing in the back of the canoe, the stern end
cap and her paddle supporting her head and shoulders. With 14 nice bass released by that time, I
probably wasn't fishing as alertly as before, but in the back of my mind was
the thought of that big smallmouth I'd seen the previous day at Campbell
Bridge, and the hope for another one that size.
It
was a swirling run, the river curving against a high clay bank, just a couple
of miles above the park. The canoe was
tight against the vertical alluvium as I used the narrow zone of water slowed
by friction against the bank to control the craft while I fished, since my wife
and paddler was still dozing instead of handling the boat. I was casting ahead of the canoe, parallel to
the bank. Cast and retrieve, cast and
retrieve; halfway down the run, a paddle stroke to keep the canoe in position;
cast and retrieve, cast and—there was a great swirl just as the lure dipped
beneath the surface and I set the hooks against solid resistance. My shout roused my wife, and she gasped as
the big smallmouth cleared the water by two feet in its only real leap. The big ones seldom waste much energy in
jumping, and after that memorable sight, this one bored for the bottom, pumping
a third of my rod down into the water, and then surged into a powerful run
toward the middle of the river that swung the front end of the canoe around and
stripped yards of line off my reel. It
surfaced as I dipped the rod tip and applied pressure to the side to discourage
any more dangerous leaps. Then the bass
shot across the bow of the canoe in another powerful run toward the bank,
towing the canoe back the other way.
Wife backpaddled away from the bank and a tangle of logs that would have
given the bass refuge and a chance at fouling the line, and the battle settled
into a series of surges and rolls and dives that ended when I forced the fish's
head up and grasped its lower jaw, lifting 22 inches and five pounds of
bronzeback, still one of the biggest Ozark river smallmouth I've ever caught.
The 22-inch smallmouth from that first trip. I carried this little photo around in my wallet for several years. I was much younger then!
After
that trip, I wrote articles in a regional periodical, letters to politicians,
and missives to newspapers, all extolling the virtues of the undammed Meramec,
and I'd like to think I played a small role in the final fate of the Meramec
Dam, voted down by regional referendum and eventually de-authorized. I'd fallen in love with this beautiful river,
and in the following years I got to know the whole Meramec, even floating it
from its highest normal put-in, Short Bend near Highway 19, to Times Beach, a
total of more than 160 miles, in one epic 12-day trip. I also learned the Bourbeuse, Huzzah,
Courtois, a couple of smaller tributary streams that are little known and
seldom floated, and even several little tributary creeks which I explored by
wading. The streams of the Meramec Basin
are still some of my favorite float destinations, and I've seen the changes,
both good and bad, that have overtaken the rivers and the watershed.
The
Meramec and its tributaries drain around 2,149 square miles of eastern Missouri,
just southwest of St. Louis. The system
contains three major Ozark streams, the Meramec, Bourbeuse, and Big River, along
with two smaller but canoe-navigable feeder streams, Huzzah and Courtois
creeks, two marginally floatable streams, the Mineral Fork, tributary to Big
River, and Indian Creek, tributary to the Meramec, and a long stream with
little water, Dry Fork. The Meramec
itself is nearly 220 miles from its source to where it empties into the
Mississippi River just south of St. Louis.
Big River, the largest tributary, is 138 miles long, and the Bourbeuse
flows for 147 miles. In total there are
well over 500 miles of permanently flowing streams within the basin that are
large enough to furnish typical recreation such as fishing and swimming. And none of this water is much more than two
hours’ driving time from the largest metropolitan area in the state of
Missouri; a good portion of it lies less than an hour from the city of St.
Louis.
Moreover,
there is a remarkable diversity to the waters and land within this
watershed. The Meramec itself begins as
a usually dry stream flowing northward from the vicinity of Salem in a typical
Ozark Plateau landscape that is a mix of rough, steep hollows and ridges and
more gently rolling pasturelands. It
picks up water from small seeps and springs and becomes a perennially flowing
stream about 15 miles from its highest source.
It has been floated in good water from that point but does not really
become big enough to float a loaded canoe, even in the higher water levels of
spring, for a dozen more miles. From
there, the upper river runs for nearly 30 miles, a typical small, gravel
bottomed Ozark stream, surrounded by hills and cleared bottom fields with
frequent low cliffs of the dolomitic limestone so characteristic of much of the
Ozarks, before receiving a major inflow from Maramec Spring.
Upper reach of the Meramec
(Note
the different spelling of Maramec Spring.
Old published reports spelled it that way, though it was probably a
mistake that it was not spelled the same as the river. The James Foundation, which has owned the
spring since the 1800s, has kept this traditional spelling. In fact, “Meramec” is itself a corruption of
the supposed Native American pronunciation of the river. Legend has it that the Native American word
signified “waters of ugly fish”, or catfish.
The French spelled the Indian word “Miaramiguoua”, and the river’s name
has gone through a number of different historic spellings before the present
version.)
The
spring, which emerges from the ground in a beautiful park, is the fifth largest
spring in Missouri, a state known for huge springs. Under its influence, the Meramec for the next
8 miles or so becomes a trout stream, with water temperatures more hospitable
to cold water fish and other creatures than the cool water species usually
found in the Ozarks. From that point the
river is big enough to furnish year-round canoe floating and some use by jet
outboard powered watercraft. In the next
37 miles, fed by other springs and small creeks, the Meramec grows slowly
larger, and as the spring influence wanes, it reverts into the kind of cool
water habitat so typical of the larger Ozark streams. Receiving the waters of Huzzah Creek, itself
doubled by the merging with its sister stream Courtois Creek just a mile above
the Meramec, the river becomes noticeably wider. Huzzah and Courtois are twin gems; fast,
exceptionally clear, and flowing through quietly scenic Ozark valleys.
Huzzah Creek
Downstream
from the Huzzah is the Meramec's most spectacular section, the part of the
river once endangered by the Meramec Dam, with high, rugged bluffs at every
bend, clear green water, and clean gravel bars.
At the end of that section, in the vicinity of where the dam would have
been, the river winds by Meramec State Park, one of Missouri's finest
parks. Below the park, the river begins
to slow a bit, and more of the ills of civilization become apparent, notably in
the form of cabins and clubhouses along the banks. But the Meramec remains classically Ozarkian
in character until it reaches the mouth of its second largest tributary, the
Bourbeuse River.
Meramec in the stretch that would have been dammed.
The
Bourbeuse is far from a typical Ozark stream.
A good portion of the land it drains is underlain by sandstone, rather than
the dolomite and limestone that covers most of the Ozarks. Its valley is wider and shallower than that
of the Meramec, a mosaic of small farms, woodlots, and pastureland, and the
river flows more slowly than a typical Ozark stream. With the abundance of cleared agricultural
land, the Bourbeuse is usually murky, both from erosion from cleared bottom
fields and from algal growth due to fertilizer and livestock waste runoff. Yet its water quality is reasonably good, and
inhabitants include not only the usual Ozark species, but some that are more
typical of the flatter lands of northern Missouri.
Bourbeuse River
Below
the Bourbeuse, the Meramec flows for 25 miles before reaching its biggest
tributary by average volume, Big River.
While the Bourbeuse flows through younger geologic formations along the
flank of the Ozark uplift, the headwaters of Big River are in the Precambrian
hills of the St. Francois Mountains, the geologic center of the Ozarks and the
oldest exposed rock in the region. When
the river emerges from the St. Francois Mountains, it runs through the former
lead mining area known as the Old Lead Belt, where it is badly damaged by the
effects of previous mining activity, and from there it enters another mining
area, this time barite mining, where it is further degraded. Picking up the clear, clean waters of the
Mineral Fork, the river continues into the continually expanding suburbs of the
St. Louis area, and cabins and residences are very common along the banks. Yet the river, for all the abuses it suffers,
still retains a surprisingly healthy Ozarkian ecology.
Big River
Downstream
from Big River, the Meramec is a large, slow, and murky urban stream, a far cry
from the sparkling clear waters of the upper river. It is surrounded by suburbs and industry,
sectioned off by many bridges, its banks altered by gravel and sand dredging in
numerous places. But its water quality
remains acceptable and it furnishes recreation for many of the citizens of the
St. Louis area.
Lower Meramec
With
the variety of lands and rocks in the watershed, the range of different stream
characteristics, and the overall quality of riverine habitat, the Meramec and
its tributaries are home to the largest number of species of aquatic life of
any Ozark river system. With clear
headwater creeks, clean, strongly flowing mid-size streams, the slower and more
fertile farm country waters of the Bourbeuse, and finally the lower river with
its connection to the Mississippi, the system boasts just about every type of
riparian habitat to be found in the Midwest.
Along with the quality and diversity of the streams of the Meramec
Basin, its proximity to St. Louis makes it perhaps the most important riverine
recreational area in the region. That
proximity also puts the system in perpetual danger of suffering abuses from human
activities. The mining areas on Big
River are the most obvious, but far from the only environmental problems within
the watershed. Unwise land clearing with
subsequent erosion of sediments into the waters is a ubiquitous problem. Clearing of riparian forest cover makes banks
susceptible to damage. Gravel dredging,
both for commercial use and in misguided attempts to control flooding and bank
erosion, adversely affects the hydrology and the stream habitat. Suburban sprawl, with attendant septic tank
problems and storm water run-off, degrades water quality along with the
aesthetics of the landscape. The large
percentage of the watershed used for raising cattle presents its own problems
with nutrient pollution and agricultural wastes. Moreover, the portions of the rivers closest
to St. Louis flow through industrial areas with their own sources of pollution,
along with alterations to the channel and banks.
In
some places the streams are simply in danger of being loved to death. Numerous campgrounds and canoe liveries are
found over much of the Meramec, along with the Huzzah and Courtois. While most of the campground and livery
owners try to be good stewards of the stream resource, the sheer volume of
users can have severe effects on both water quality and the recreational
experience. Add to that the continually
growing popularity of high-speed jet boat use, with its attendant wave wash
attacking banks, and the mainstream Meramec often seems to be in danger of
drowning under a sea of people.
Yet
the river and its sister streams have so many places where one can find
solitude and quiet beauty. Drift down
the middle Meramec on a winter day when the colors are all muted grays and
browns beneath cloudy skies, and the quietly flowing water is dark and
mysterious as it swirls beneath a towering bluff. Ride Huzzah Creek in a kayak down a twisting,
laughing riffle that opens out onto a smooth run beneath giant sycamore trees
growing across from a gravel bar gleaming in the sun, where you can see every
rock on the bottom in the six feet of amazingly clear water and watch the
minnows and suckers fleeing from the shadow of your craft. Paddle along a steep hillside on Big River on
an April day, when the bluebells are blooming thickly in the narrow, wooded zone
at the base of the hill and the redbuds with their showy bouquets punctuate the
valley sides. Lean back in your seat and
soak in the understated beauty of a long, still Bourbeuse River pool, lined on
one side with thick bankside forest and on the other by a low bluff that has
shed great sandstone boulders into the river throughout the ages. Then you'll see why I love these Ozark gems.
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