The Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel of the MO Smallmouth Alliance has been pretty busy over the past few weeks in formulating and then proposing new regulations for the management of SMB in Missouri's streams.

A description of the Panel's recent presentation the Regulations Committee of the MDC in Jefferson City is included below. A copy of presentation made to the MDC will be available at www.missourismallmouthalliance.org later this week.

A couple of weeks ago, My wife, Lori, and I tried to fish the Norfork River but we were disappointed when the water was not turned off despite a generation prediction that indicated we would have prime wading conditions. Once again, I checked the generation prediction and noted that we were to receive a nice five hour window of wadable water. Lori was a bit more skeptical than I was. She was unwilling to leave the house until we were sure that the water had been turned off. She had been trifled with once and it would not happen again. At 10:30 AM, I called the dam and they confirmed that the Norfork had been turned off at 10:00 AM.

During the past week, we have had warmer temperatures and no precipitation. The lake level at Bull Shoals Dam fell two tenths of a foot to rest at one tenth of a foot below power pool of 654.00 feet. This is forty one and one tenth feet below the top of flood pool. Up stream, Table Rock Lake fell nine tenths of a foot to rest at one tenth of a foot below power pool or sixteen and one tenth feet below the top of flood pool.

Generation and water temperature are always the first items I talk about in my fishing reports. Why? Because everything revolves around them. How you can fish, where and with what. I don’t talk about temperature as much as generation—it’s usually not an issue, but right now I feel it is. Table Rock Dam has been running two units 24/7 for more than a week in an effort to get Table Rock to power pool—915.0 feet. I emphasize the “.0” because at the moment it’s at .3. I’ve been told by a little bird that when it reaches .0 the dam operators will back off on generation. That may mean periods of zero or at least less generation in the coming days.