WEBVTT - Ep. 138: Mississippi River - Big Fish (Part 4) 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.880 We have a natural flood pulse of the lower miss 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.840 whereat you don't have it in the Upper miss you 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.480 don't have it in the Ohio, you don't have it 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.760 in the Arkansas. It's all damned all the way up. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.240 So that's the unique nature of it. And the fact 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:21.920 that it joins the Missouri and goes another twelve hundred 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.360 miles makes it the longest free flowing stretch of river. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.159 We've traveled in good ways down the Mississippi River in 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.199 the last three episodes to understand its power and size, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.040 its ancient connection to man, the settlement of the Delta 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.560 in some of the world's richest soil, the great engineering 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.280 feat of taming the river, and the Great Flood of 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.960 nineteen twenty seven. We've covered a lot of ground, all 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.000 of this for the purpose of trying to understand how 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:55.120 the Mississippi River has impacted America. On this episode, though, 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.880 we're getting into the nitty gritty of river life and 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.440 the fisheries hell and status, and I think you might 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:07.720 be surprised by what you learned. I was doctor Jack Kilgore, 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.080 who's a fisheries biologist for the Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.080 Mississippi will tell us about the great beasts of this river, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.600 the giant catfish, paddlefish, guars, and turtles. We'll also hear 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:25.320 about finding giant groundsloth claws, bison skulls, and dead bodies. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.200 Will get to meet a man who spent the last 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.440 fifty years commercial fishing on the river and hear his 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.800 wildest stories. I really doubt you're gonna want to miss 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:36.319 this one. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.160 I hear that a lot too. You know, look how 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.360 muddy it is, and it's got to be polluted. I've 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.240 heard it's not. I tell people it's not. In fact, 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:46.400 you know, I would catch a fish out of the 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.640 Mississippi Way before and eat it. Before I would eat 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.520 a fish out of my lake there in the subdivision. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:53.200 Is that? 0:01:53.480 --> 0:02:02.920 Oh yeah. 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.840 My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:10.880 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.600 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.760 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:24.519 Presented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.200 hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:28.960 as the place. 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:45.560 As we explore, how are you doing good? How about you, 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:46.400 Klay Nukelem. 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.480 Yeah, Bill, good to meet you. 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.840 This is my colleague and partner, Brent Reeves. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.399 Brent, yes, sir, A yeah, pretty good. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.120 Yeah you've been on the river this morning? 0:02:58.160 --> 0:02:59.960 Oh yeah, yeah, I went and got those hoping now. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.360 So Brent and I just crossed the big River from 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.000 Arkansas onto the Mississippi side in a truck on a bridge, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.320 and that's some uptown living. We didn't have to ferry 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.200 across it or build a raft. If you remember, Old 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.560 James Buchanan Eads was the first guy to build a 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.160 bridge on the bigger sections of the Mississippi in eighteen 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.480 seventy four. It's in Saint Louis. Where we get out 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.880 of the truck. The air is thick and muggy. It's 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.280 incredibly flat compared to where I came from. And if 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.360 you're not looking at a crop field, the vegetation is 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.640 as thick as a cane break. Welcome to the Mississippi Delta. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.920 Bill Lancaster is a commercial fisherman and he's just come 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.400 off the water. He's wearing a ball cap, T shirt, shorts, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.240 and white rubber boots. He kind of reminds me of 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:55.160 the country singer Tracy Lawrence, but a lot grittier. So 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.000 how long you been fishing on the Mississippi River? 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:04.800 Probably I probably started actually fishing in nineteen sixty nine. Yeah, 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:06.720 that's that's the year I bought my first hook and 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.960 net graduated from high school. My dad belonged to a 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.360 hunting club on the Mississippi. A good friend of mine 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.480 that was in the same grade that I was. We 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.520 moved over there that summer and commercial fished on the 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:23.159 river in the fall of sixty nine and then then 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.040 went off to the to the army. So you got 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.080 that winter. Yeah, So we we fished all summer over 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.240 there and sold fish, you know to a local guy 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.320 that was on the river at that time from Arkansas. 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:36.840 And you you were just like, hey, I can make 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.520 a I can make a living. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:39.040 Well with this. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:39.479 You know. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.560 We were, you know, eighteen seventeen, eighteen years old at 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.119 that time, you know, and we were up for pretty 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.400 much anything. But we you know, both grew up hunting 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.960 and fishing, you know, and we enjoyed, you know, being 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.159 on the river, and we thought, you know, that'd be 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.200 a great thing to do. It'd be fished this summer, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.760 you know, and try to make a little money, just 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.640 something to do before we went off to the the service. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:02.480 That was over fifty years ago. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:04.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah, sixty nine. 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.600 So yeah, so every year since then you fished, fished. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.760 Off and on for a number of years, and then 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.760 started fishing full time, probably around nineteen eighty five eight 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.120 a year round, yeah, year round, Yeah, twelve months out 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.440 of the year. You know, it doesn't matter how cold 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.320 it is, how hot it is. You know, we fished. Yeah, wow, Yeah. 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:26.560 You spent a lot of time on the river. 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.360 Oh I wish you know, I wish I knew exactly 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.160 how much time I had spent out there. Yeah, unbelievable. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.400 Mister Bell is seventy one years old and has spent 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.680 over fifty years on the water. With all this talk 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.200 from Mark Twain about the treacherous river and its incredible power, 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.200 one of my first questions which struck at the heart 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.320 of my curiosity and had nothing to do with fish, 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.479 but had to do with close calls. I asked him 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.440 if he'd had any and you better believe that he had. 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.240 Eventually we're going to talk to him about fishing, but 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:00.839 not yet. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.640 Yeah, I've had a couple of experiences out there, I 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.280 was running a small sixteen foot boat with a fifty 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.000 horse motor on it, and earlier that week I had 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.479 broken the trim tab off of it. And when you 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:18.320 do that, the motor will torque hard to the right. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.320 That trim tab is what keeps that motor running in 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.279 a straight line, even if you let off the tailor handle. 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.320 So I broke that trim tab off and I was 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.880 running hoop nets, and I had gotten through running the 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.239 hoop nets. I was headed back up river with about 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.560 a half a load of fish, and there was water 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.920 in the boat, and I was going to reach back 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.719 and pull the plug out and let it drain the 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.960 water while I was running back to the boat ramp. Well, 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.200 I pulled the plug out, had one hand on the 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.520 tailor handle, and I was running about half throttle, not 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.280 wide open. And somehow, when I pulled that plug out 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.840 and started to turn around, my hand slipped off that 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.599 tillor handle, and when it did, it made a hard 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.640 ninety to the right, and it sent me out of 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.479 that boat just in an instant. I mean I didn't 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.760 even realize what had happened. The first thing I knew 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.080 I was under the water. And when I came to 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.480 the surface, I could see the boat going off away 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.120 from it, still in gear. It had idle itself down 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.280 to idle speed and it was going off, you know. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.560 But when it did that hard right turn, it threw 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.480 all the fish over to the left side of the boat. 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.720 You know, everything in the boat went over to the 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.920 left side when it made that hard right turn. And 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.960 when it did that, it sent the boat into a turn, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.680 and it was running at half speed with the plug out, 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.400 coming around and making a circle. Well, I was in 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.840 the river, had my rain gear on, had boots on, 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.600 had blue jeans under the rain gear, you know, and 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:49.800 it was heavy. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:51.120 I kicked the. 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.440 Boots off, you know, to light myself up, you know, 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.200 and I was just dog paddling, try to stay afloat. 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.000 And the boat I could see it, you know, coming around. 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.440 It was gonna make a and it you know, it 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.440 looked like it might come back by me, you know. 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.840 So it started that turn. I said, well, if I 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.000 can catch it when it comes around, I can make it. 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.840 So we're floating down the current in the current, you know, 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.640 floating down river, and it's coming around just at I speak, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.960 coming around. Well, when it did, it was just out 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:21.480 of reach. I was trying to get to it, but 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.920 it was just out of reach, and my hands just 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.280 barely missed the guntle on that boat. I was going 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.040 to just grab hold of the side of the boat, 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.880 you know, and hold on. Well I missed it, you know. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.760 It wasn't quite close enough. So as it went around again, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.520 it made a wider circle. It was widen itself out. 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.280 It was coming at a wider make it a wider 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.520 turn every time it went around. Second time it went 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.720 around it, I was lined up with it pretty good. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.840 And when it passed me, I just locked my arms 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.240 over the guntle of the boat and just held on 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.720 until I got my strength up and got my wits 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.800 about me. You know, I just hung on and let 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.719 it be. It was dragging me through the water, and 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.240 I just rolled myself over the in the boat with 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.320 just brute strength. Just rolled myself over in the boat 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.480 and laid in the bottom boat for a second. You know. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.120 Then I reached back there and I got the plug 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.440 back in and I got control of it. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:16.840 You know. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.720 But if that boat hadn't come around and picked me up, Wow, 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:23.120 I probably would have been gone. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.240 Yeah, really, you think you would have well, I would 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:27.600 have you right in the middle of the river. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.680 Yeah. Well I wasn't in the middle, but I was 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:30.600 out out. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.000 In You don't think you could have made it to 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:32.360 the bank. 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.240 I don't think I could. It was cold, so the 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.880 water wasn't that cold in October, you know. But it 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.000 was just the current and the weight, the sheer weight 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.760 of those that wet clothing and that rain gear, and 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.000 I had no life jacket on, nothing. It just sapped 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.360 my strength almost immediately. It was all I could do 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.559 to hold myself up. Yeah, just keep my head above water, 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.600 you know. That was that was one of the closer calls. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.480 You just got back in the boat, got back in 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.520 the boat and probably say thank you lord. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.120 Yeah, well my composure and it went onto the boat 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.800 ramp and carried on, carried on that day. Yeah, sold 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.400 a fish, you know, did it all? Yeah? 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.600 What does your wife say when you told her that story? 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.280 Well, she was everybody else I've told it to you. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.160 You know, they just say, you know, you you just 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.440 it wasn't your time, you know, just lucky, you know. 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.480 You know Davy Crockett had a boat wreck on the 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.439 Mississippi River and he said, if you're born to be hung. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.240 You'll never drowned. It wasn't his time to drown, that's right. 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:31.120 Yeah. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:32.720 How old were you when that happened? 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.720 That was probably in two thousand and probably eight. 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.040 Okay, now you're seventy one. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.200 Now I was in probably what sixties about or sixties? 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:47.320 Wow, that's incredible. Boat wrecks on the Mississippi are common. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.720 As a matter of fact, the worst maritime disaster in 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.840 US history happened on the Mississippi River on April twenty seventh, 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.760 eighteen sixty five, near Memphis, Tennessee. Two hundred and sixty 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.400 foot long steamboat called called the Sultana was carrying Union prisoners, 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.560 just two weeks after the Civil War ended, who had 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.679 been released from a Confederate prison camp at Vicksburg. They 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.120 were headed to Saint Louis to go home to their families. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.240 The boat had a carrying capacity of three hundred and 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.440 seventy six passengers, but they'd packed on two thousand, one 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:26.040 hundred and thirty seven people aboard. At two am on 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.120 that April morning, a boiler explosion sunk the ship in 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.560 a fiery ball of chaos. Eleven hundred and sixty nine 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:40.200 people died, most Union soldiers. Despite the size of the disaster, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.360 the shipwreck didn't get much press because Lincoln had just 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.640 been assassinated, the war had been raging for years and 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.560 had just ended, and the country was tired of bad news, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.240 and there was a possible government cover up because of 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:58.360 the overcrowded ship on a US sanctioned transport. Today, there 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.400 is a Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas. The boat 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.360 was missing for over one hundred years. It's sank in 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.360 the river, but in nineteen eighty two, over two miles 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.000 off the current river, the Sultana was located in an 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:18.200 Arkansas soybean field. The river bed had shifted that far 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.880 and the boat is still there. Soon, we're going to 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.720 talk about some fun stuff like the charismatic fish of 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.600 the Mississippi River with doctor Jack Kilgore, with who else, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.160 and I think you'll be surprised to hear how well 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.920 they're doing. But I had to ask mister Bill another question, 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.079 kind of a dark question. And if you're listening with kids, 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:46.240 we're about to talk about d EA d people stand by. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.040 Don't judge me. I'm just asking the questions that everybody's thinking. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.760 But it's an interesting lifestyle. You know, you see a 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:55.640 lot of different things. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:55.880 You know. 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.160 You ever found a dead body on the river? 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.400 Yep, found a couple of those over that year. Really, yeah, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.280 found two. Actually, what was the story. Yeah, I found 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:09.280 one just several years ago. She was right down here 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.240 south of town. Yeah, And I was going upstream. You know, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.600 I've done running running gear. You know, it was in March, 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.920 it's cold. I was running upstream and I was just looking, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.040 you know, out across the river, you know, just paying 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.560 attention to where I was going, and I saw something, 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.160 you know, floating downstream. You know, it looked a little 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.320 bit different, you know. Then I said, well, that's probably 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.360 a deer. You know, you see bucks, you know, somebody 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.000 had shot upstream or whatever coming down. I passed by 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.160 and I picked up big deer before, you know, I'm 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.240 a big deer, and you know, I said, I'm going 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:45.960 to go back and I'm going to look at see 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.319 exactly what that was. And then when I turned around 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.440 and I got a little bit closer to it, I 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.280 could tell I said, oh my lord, here we go. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.800 Mister Bill reported these incidents to the authorities and worked 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.520 with law enforcement to help them recover the bodies, but 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.720 it's clear the Mississippi is no stranger to the dead. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.160 In the first episode, we learned that Hernando de Soto, 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.320 credited as the first European to see the river in 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.320 fifteen forty one, had a water burial not far from 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.560 where the Sultana sank. My intent is not to be morbid, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.800 but rather to present a slick scientific segue into the 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.440 next section of the podcast. But I'd say there's a 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.680 high probability that de Soto's body was eaten by an 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.480 alligator snapping turtle. If you know wild places, you know 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.000 that organic matter in water does not go to waste. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.480 I now want to talk with doctor Kilgore about the 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.240 health of the Mississippi River. This first segment is a 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.200 bit of a review, but it will quickly get into 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:51.920 the new stuff. 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.400 All the other great rivers of the word, the Congo, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.720 the Nile, the Antsee, all of those they have near 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.720 the mouth of the river, whereas the Mississippi, the first 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.120 dam you encounter is up in Saint Louis, which is 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.960 twelve hundred miles up. However, a fish can take a 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.320 left on the Missouri and go another twelve hundred miles 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.000 to the Gavin's point dam on the Missouri. So I 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.160 tell people this that if you put all of that together, 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:26.800 there's almost twenty four hundred miles of free flowing Mississippi 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.080 Missouri River. There's nothing else like that in the world 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.200 except for the Amazon. All the other great rivers have 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:39.680 been dammed, which influences set thement, transport, water quality, migratory fish. 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.440 You know, it has all those negative impacts. And that's 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.040 one reason in particular the Lower miss because it has 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.080 an intact floodplain, it has a natural flood pulse. There 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.680 have been no extirpations or extinction of species in modern time. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:56.720 Really, even with all the manipulation. 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.560 That's right, despite all that river engineering, we still have 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.280 a very robust, diversed aquatic assemblage in this river. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:05.080 That's incredible. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.200 And that's what we're trying to understand and protect and 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:12.920 conserve because it really has never been evaluated in a, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.960 you know, in a very holistic quantitative way until the 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:18.520 last twenty years or so. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.880 It's essential to understand the river is what it is 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.640 because of its intact floodplain, the batcher as it's called, 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.600 or the space inside the levees. Here's why a healthy 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.960 floodplain is important for fish. 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.240 What happens then is every spring, you know, the river 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.680 comes up and it floods, and the fish and other 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.560 aquatic organisms they follow that floodpulse up into the floodplain, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.680 and what they encounter are tens of thousands of acres 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:57.120 of lakes, scatters, breaks, slews, just perfect habitat for spawning 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.160 and rearing and feeding. And then when the river begins 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.000 to contract and go back down, a lot of these 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:08.720 recently spawned fish will follow the retreating flood down into 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.359 the river and they repopulate the river, so they sustain 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:17.360 the numbers the biodiversity year after year because we have 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.280 a natural flood pulse of the lower miss whereas you 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.919 don't have it in the Upper miss you don't have 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.879 it in the Ohio, you don't have it in the Arkansas. 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.840 It's all damned all the way up. So that's the 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.720 unique nature of it. And the fact that it joins 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.879 the Missouri and goes another twelve hundred miles makes it 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.040 really one of the longest. Other than that, I think 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.520 it is the longest free flowing stretch of river. 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.719 The flood pulse, the movement of the river up and 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.720 down in its floodplain, feeds the fish of the river 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.679 and can be important for their breeding cycles. It's just 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:55.160 that simple. Doctor Kilgore will now talk about why having 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:00.159 extended stretches of free flowing, non damned rivers are good 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.240 for fish, and this might even bolster the tattoo idea 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.280 from episode one. Don't do it, but it's a good idea. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:14.200 And so we do telemetry studies and we tag fish, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.439 and we've had multiple examples of fish moving upstream one 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.000 thousand miles, moving downstream a thousand miles. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.440 A thousand miles. Yea, what fish? What kind of fish 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:25.000 are doing that? 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:30.520 Sturgeon, paddlefish, the invasive karp, we've had, buffalo. They make 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:32.560 long migratory runs as well. 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.960 Why are they Why are those fish doing that? Like, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.600 what's what's biologically advantageous about going that far? 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.760 Well? I think one reason is that they're spreading out 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.159 their progeny. Some of them, we believe, we don't know 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.480 for sure, have certain homing instincts, just like salmon, that 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.480 they'll actually go back to their natal spawning area or 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.720 in that general area. Some fish may move from the 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.200 Missouri down into the Mississippi, but they spawn in the Missouri. 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.560 They go back to the Missouri to spawn, so as 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.280 a homing behavior, it's a behavior we don't fully understand, 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.000 but we do know that there's there's a lot of 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.040 movement both upstream and downstream of fish. 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.720 Doctor Kilgore is an expert on fish, and as usual, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.480 I was delighted when he talked about all the things 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.720 they don't know. Mysteries remain brothers, and he and his 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.479 teams have done some seminal work on the river and 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.280 still are. But let's talk catfish. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.560 But the catfish. We have three species of giant catfish. 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.240 The new state record of Mississippi a blue cat was 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.280 broken last year one hundred and thirty pound blue cat. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.919 We regularly catch fifty sixty pound flatheads and blue cats 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:50.440 out there. The catfish population is unexploited. I mean, there 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.960 are there are so many catfish in this river, and 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.040 there's so few fishermen really and there's and there's so 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.119 much habitat and it's in you go down the bigger 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.800 the catfish tend tend to be too. From based upon 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.120 a study we did, you know, in some ways, because 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.600 this river fluctuates fifty feet a year, and you got 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.879 these huge floods. You know, we haven't even reached the 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.760 carrying capacity of some of these fish. They can continue on, 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:22.480 and that's what's happened. Unfortunately, with the invasive carbon, they 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.680 found the lower Mississippi River to be very hospitable. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:31.240 Unfortunately, now the catfish I'm interested in catfish. I would 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:36.240 have thought that commercial fishermen were hitting the Mississippi really hard, 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:37.000 but they're not. 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.439 Yes, they are, But the numbers of commercial fishermen have 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:42.240 dwindled over the years. 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.480 Is that a market thing or like the part of 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.800 farm raising catfish that was part of the decline forbid, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.080 people aren't eating as much catfish as they yoused to. 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:51.920 Was that true? 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.320 I think we are. There's more store bought catfish. The 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.320 farm raised catfish certainly took a head on commercial fishing. However, 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.719 I worked with the commercial fisherman for years, Bill Lancaster. 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.560 We've already met mister Bill. He and doctor Kilgore, Old Brose. 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.600 In fact, I'll diverge for a minute and tell the 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.479 story about Bill. We were coming in and we'd been 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.000 out there sampling. We came into our boat ramping. Here 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.000 comes Bill in his boat and his boat was full 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.600 of fish. He's a commercial fisherman, of course, just full 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.520 of catfish in Buffalo. And we started talking to him 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.400 and we've told him that we're interested in catching sturgeon 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.560 on the Mississippi River and he goes, did you have 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.720 any suggestions? He goes, I catch sturgeon all the time 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.119 on my trot lines. Go really, well, would you like 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:42.479 to go out with us and show us? 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:43.400 And he did. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:48.080 One January nineteen ninety nine, a cold January morning, we 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.119 went out with Bill. He had set trot lines on 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.600 the Mississippi River and one of the first hooks that 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.760 came up he had a ten pound pallid sturgeon, which 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.520 is the endangered species of sturgeon. MM and so okay, hey, Bill, 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.200