Return to
the All Outdoors PageReturn to
the MDC News PageReturn
to MDC Home PageThe Eastern Chipmunk . . . in the words of a small nephew, 'looks like a little squirrel with a strip of bacon on its back.' -- John Kieran, Natural History of New York City
Winter fishing at Missouri's four trout parks offers a unique and often solitary experience.
JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri's 1997-98 no-creel trout season opens Nov. 14. For anglers who can dress for cold weather, it's a great opportunity to catch some fish. Ample numbers of rainbow trout fill park streams, including trophy fish of 3 to 8 pounds. Fishing is for fun -- all trout must be released in good shape.
Three open state parks include Roaring River, Montauk and Bennett Spring. A fourth park, the James Foundation's Maramec Spring, is also open. Fishing is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fishing is limited to flies. Anglers are required to have a no-creel permit ($5 for the whole winter season) plus a free daily tag. These permits and tags are available only at the trout parks.
Anglers at Roaring River State Park will find an additional nine-tenths of a mile of stream open to fishing. The open area runs from the hatchery outlet to the old dam in the lower campground. Anglers now buy their winter permits and tags at the hatchery building, rather than at the park store as in the past.
The "lunkers" released for the winter catch-and-release season are big fish that have served as brood stock at Conservation Department hatcheries and are no longer needed. In addition, at Maramec Spring and Bennett Spring, large brown trout, driven by the urge to spawn, swim upstream into the parks. A study at one of the parks showed approximately 18,000 trout left in the stream following the regular season, which ends October 31 each year. These fish are supplemented by stocking in areas that don't normally hold many trout.
An important tip for releasing trout in good condition is to minimize contact with the fish. Less contact is less stress. Anglers can use pliers or hemostats to remove hooks without touching the fish. Cut the line if the hook is lodged deep. It will eventually fall out. Barbless hooks or hooks with barbs flattened with pliers are ideal.
"We discourage people from holding fish out of the water," says Ron McCullough, hatchery manager at Bennett Spring. "If they want to take a picture of the fish, I suggest they take it with the fish held in the water." When a fish is out of water it is out of oxygen. Furthermore, the slimy covering that protects its skin can dry out, leaving it susceptible to bacterial infection.
Fishermen should not attempt to weigh fish caught during the winter fishing season at trout parks. Anglers can use nets during the no-creel season; sometimes the net makes it easier to grasp a fish in order to remove the fly. Holding the fish upside down will quiet it and also make it easier to handle.
Fish should be landed in a short time. But if the fish, once landed, appears exhausted, hold it in the water facing upstream until it swims out of your hand. The gills of a trout are designed to work best when water flows in one direction only. Pumping the fish back and forth does not help. Reversing the flow of water across the gills actually reduces the oxygen the trout gets into its system.
-jim auckley-
Missouri hunters could bag 180,000 deer again this year, but there may be long lines if too many hunters wait until the week before the season to buy permits
JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri's firearms deer harvest promises to be plentiful again this year. But with an estimated 150,000 permits still to be sold, the possibility of hunters standing in long lines to buy permits looms large.
Al Brand, fiscal services supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation, said that three weeks before the Nov. 15 deer season opener approximately 355,655 resident and nonresident firearms and muzzleloader deer hunting permits had been sold. Last year, Missouri hunters bought 501,462 deer hunting permits.
"There is no reason to believe that people won't buy as many deer permits as last year," said Brand. "In all likelihood, they will buy more. And if most of the 150,000 hunters who haven't bought their permits yet put it off until the last few days before deer season, it could get crowded at permit vendors."
The problem, says Brand, is that the Conservation Department's computerized permit issuing system doesn't have limitless capacity. When all of Missouri's 1,400 permit vendors try to process permit applications simultaneously, delays are inevitable.
"Hunters can avoid delays by purchasing their permits at least a couple of weeks ahead of time and avoiding peak shopping hours," said Brand.
Hunters in most parts of the state should find plenty of deer. If the weather during deer season is conducive to hunting, the firearms deer kill should be similar to last year's, about 180,000. Conservation Department Wildlife Research Biologist Jeff Beringer said this year's deer harvest targets are designed to maintain or reduce deer populations in most of the state's 59 deer management units.
Deer populations are above target levels in the northern half of the state. The area around Atchison, Nodaway, Holt and Andrew counties in northwestern Missouri has an overabundance of deer. Lack of public land, and resulting lack of access for hunters, allows deer in this area to multiply beyond what is considered desirable by farmers, orchard operators and landowners.
An exception is Unit 5 in northeastern Missouri. Deer numbers there are 20 percent below the target level. Several units in southern Missouri are significantly below management goals. These include Units 26 (-17%), 27 (-25%), 31(-10%), 32 (-24%), 36 (-18%), 37 (-19%), 38 (-10%), 39 (-33%), 40 (-20%), 41 (-28%), 42 (-11%), 43 (-26%), 44 (-30%), 46 (-16%), 48 (-23%), 50 (-22%), 51 (-11%), 53 (-13%), 54 (-15%) and 55 (-14%).
Acorns are deer's main food in the fall, and Beringer said this year's acorn crop is spotty. He said savvy hunters will look for deer in areas with alternate foods, such as alfalfa, wheat or clover fields, and open patches of forest with an abundance of green sprouts.
The Conservation Department has mailed special check station convenience stickers to hunters who bought deer permits last year. These stickers are not deer tags. Their purpose is to speed processing at check stations. "Don't sweat it if you didn't get one," said Beringer. "But if you did, keep it with your deer tag and take it to the check station with you."
According to Beringer, the availability of up to five special archery deer tags for antlerless deer in the state's urban deer management units (Units 22, 58 and 59) has proved useful to landowners who experienced localized deer problems. But they haven't had much effect on the overall number of deer in these areas. Unit 22 encompasses the southern portions of Boone and Callaway counties in central Missouri. Unit 58 is the area around Kansas City, and Unit 59 surrounds St. Louis. Deer in these units are still more numerous than is desirable.
"Targeting antlerless deer with these tags has enabled people who have problems with deer damage to let hunters take out does, which otherwise would produce even more deer," said Beringer. "Hunters still don't have much access to these units compared to the number of deer living there, but the urban archery tags have given property owners there a tool to control local deer numbers if they run into problems."
-jim low-
News Services Coordinator
(314) 751-4115, ext. 243
Return to
the All Outdoors PageReturn to
the MDC News PageReturn
to MDC Home Page