In Praise of Missouri's Trout Parks

[Ernest]

I would have a hard time fishing in the Trout Parks. The closest thing we have up here is private hatchery ponds. The fish farmers sell a lot of trout to restaurants and grocery stores, and they have parks for pay-by-the-pound fishing. I took my three year old granddaughter last summer and she was terrorized by catching a big rainbow that was at least half as long as she was tall. But a few weeks later she said, "Grandpa, I want to go fishing with you again." So maybe she's hooked. Most fishermen up here (including me) are spoiled by the abundant wild fish in cold small streams. The State of Wisconsin has over 10,000 miles of trout streams.

Your blue ribbon rivers and streams are more like it. It's interesting that you find so few fishermen on them. Do the fishermen go after other species because the wild trout streams are so few? That would be my guess.

Also, you write that "(i)n these streams the trout are left to reproduce for themselves. . . '" and then you picture a rainbow. Do the rainbows stay in the streams all year, and spawn successfully? That would be an interesting fish. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, rainbows (steelhead, actually) live in Lake Superior and run up the streams to spawn in the spring, but then they retreat to the big lake. They won't stay in the streams into adulthood. Rainbows are planted in some trout streams but they don't reproduce here and they rarely make it through the winter. You may have different genetics in your fish in Missouri.

[Ernest]

Many of our streams have reproducing populations of brook trout and brown trout, both of which spawn in the fall. The rainbows are spring spawners, and our spring snow runoff and spring rainfall floods make reproducing difficult. In some Lake Superior tributaries the steelhead do well (spawning) in some years, and poorly in others.

[ksbioteacher]

Streams where trout can survive, let alone reproduce are in short supply this far south and this altitude. All of those Missouri streams with "wild" populations are in Karst topography and are spring fed. Some of the largest springs in the U.S. are in Missouri. Most of us in this group would probably not chose to fish the trout park if there was a stream nearby--which I guess is the point of the posting. I'm just glad the Missouri has figured out how to keep lots of folks satisfied. Missouri is a fishing state---trout are not native but smallmouths, catfish and such are.

The trout in the picture are some of the purest strains of McCleod rainbows surviving and they do reproduce in these streams. In fact that is what they are just starting to do. Dec. is their big month. They make there reds in the tail gravel beds in shallow water. Great show to watch. I stay out of the stream for the next couple of months while they finish up and the fry hatch out.

BW