Wild at Heart: The Natural World of the Lower Mississippi with Jack Killgore

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The lower half of the Mississippi grows to an immense scale that is hard to comprehend until you’re sitting on a small boat in the middle of it. In this season of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast, we’re going to go deeper into that world, of the lower Mississippi. We’re kicking off this new season with an episode where we dive into the ecology of the lower River. Long-time fisheries biologist Jack Killgore takes us through the past and present of the lower river’s world. We talk about the lower Mississippi before engineers began to remake it, then talk about how human engineering has altered the lower river’s ecology. He describes the significance of the 2,000 miles of uninterrupted channel that run down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and describes work in progress to restore ecosystems harmed by river engineering. We finish with a description of the fish the river sustains, with an emphasis on the big ones, such as sturgeon, paddlefish, and alligator gar, as well as the problems posed by invasive carp. 

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jack Killgore (00:00):
A lot of the flora and fauna that existed
before European settlement stillexists today. And that's what
people don't realize, is that wereally had no extirpations or
extinction of species in modernday. What we have had is a
shrinkage, shrinkage of theaquatic environment, and that's

(00:24):
always been one of my goals, iswhat we have is in a lot it's
very natural. In a lot of ways,it's still that wilderness
value, and I don't think peopleappreciate that, because when I
talk to folks about theMississippi today, they tend to
think that it's just a pollutedstream that's been channelized

(00:46):
that feeds nutrients to the Gulfof Mexico, and it's nothing like
that.

Dean Klinkenberg (01:10):
Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler
Podcast. I'm Dean Klinkenberg,and I've been exploring the deep
history and rich culture of thepeople and places along
America's greatest river, theMississippi, since 2007. Join me
as I go deep into the charactersand places along the river, and
occasionally wander into otherstories from the Midwest and

(01:30):
other rivers. Read the episodeshow notes and get more
information on the Mississippiat
MississippiValleyTraveler.com.
Let's get going.
Welcome to Episode 71 of theMississippi Valley Traveler
podcast. Well, welcome back fora new season, for a new year of
episodes of the podcast. We'rekicking off this year with a

(01:54):
look at the Lower Mississippi,and my first guest of 2026 is Dr
Jack Killgore, who's been alongtime fisheries biologist,
mostly with the US Army Corps ofEngineers based in the in the
Vicksburg District. In thisepisode, we talk about the
ecology of the Lower Mississippispecifically. We talk about what
the lower river valley lookedlike before all of the

(02:17):
engineering projects began. Wecover some of the flora and
fauna and the ecosystems thatdominated during that period of
time. And we also talk about thechanges that we've made, the way
we've re-engineered the river,and the impact it's had on the
flora, fauna and thoseecosystems. We talk about the

(02:38):
significance of having 2000miles of free flowing river
along the Missouri MississippiRiver system, and we get into
some of the restoration projectsthat are underway or planned for
the Lower Mississippi to bringback some of the ecosystems and
flora and fauna that have beenharmed by the way we've

(02:58):
engineered the river. Then wespend some time really going
deep into different kinds ofspecies of fish, especially the
big fish that are common alongthe Lower Mississippi, including
paddlefish, sturgeon andalligator gar. It's a fun
discussion. I learned a lotabout the ecology of the Lower
Mississippi. I think you will aswell. So let me know what you

(03:18):
think.
I have one quick update I wantto share with you. Last April, I
was interviewed for Travel withRick Steves. We recorded two
segments about the MississippiRiver. The first was a more
general exploration of the riverthe culture places to visit. The
second segment, which just airedin January, is about each of the

(03:41):
10 states. He kind of put methrough the ringer and asked me
to pick a highlight in each ofthe 10 states along the main
stem of the Mississippi. Thatjust aired on January 30, I
think. So if you Google "Travelwith Rick Steves" and along with
my name with Dean Klinkenberg,you should be able to find both
segments if you're interested inlistening to those. It was

(04:01):
awfully fun, and I'm gratefulfor the opportunity to be on his
national radio show.
You can find the show notes forthis episode and access to all
the previous episodes atMississippi Valley
traveler.com/podcast for aslittle as $1 a month, you can
join the Patreon community, andyou get early access to the
episodes by doing so. Inaddition, you are part of the

(04:24):
group that makes this podcastpossible. Without the financial
support from my Patreonsupporters, there would not be a
current season of this podcast.
So thank you to all of you whostepped up and provide some
support. If Patreon is not yourthing, you can buy me a coffee
go toMississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast,
and at that link, you can findout how to buy me a cup of

(04:47):
coffee to support my caffeinehabit or to join the Patreon
community. Well, let's get onwith the interview.
Beginning in the 1980s Dr .JackKillgore worked in Vicksburg,

(05:11):
Mississippi as a researchfisheries biologist at the
Environmental Laboratory for theUS Army Corps of Engineers,
Engineer Research andDevelopment Center, which was
formerly known as the WaterwaysExperiment Station. His research
interests include habitatassessment of large river
fishes, conservation ofendangered species, aquatic
habitat restoration, invasivespecies management and

(05:33):
environmental impact analysisfor Corps of Engineers, flood
control and navigation projects.
Although Dr. Killgore has workedin many regions of the United
States, his emphasis has alwaysbeen the Mississippi River and
its tributaries. He currentlyteaches several river science
courses as an adjunct professorat Tulane University. He is an
enrichment speaker for theViking Mississippi river
cruises, and continues toanalyze and publish research

(05:55):
results for the Corps as acontractor. Jack, welcome to the
podcast.

Dr. Jack Killgore (06:02):
Thank you, Dean. I'm very glad to be here.

Dean Klinkenberg (06:04):
Well, I'm very excited to talk to you today. A
lot of my work has been on theupper part of the river, and I
have spent some time on thelower river as well, but I feel
like I've kind of neglected itto some degree. So this season,
one of my goals is to really doa few more episodes that really
highlight aspects of life alongthe Lower Mississippi. And I

(06:25):
think you're a great one tostart with. Maybe what we should
start with is give me, like anoverview of what we know about
what the lower part of theMississippi was like before we
started really making changes toit.

Dr. Jack Killgore (06:40):
It was a very meandering river. Huge, huge
bendways. Many of those were cutoff in the 1930s and 40s to
shorten the river. But prior tothat, you could get lost going
into the secondary channels andthe sloughs. There was a lot of

(07:01):
woody debris in the river.
Because, you know, of course,the river is part of a
bottomland hardwood forest, soyou had a lot of wood. Of
course, that became a problemwith navigation, and it the the
floodplain would would go 100plus miles, in some cases, when

(07:21):
you had major floods. So, youknow, it was kind of, I've
always thought it was kind oflike a mini Amazon river, in a
way. We can't compare any riverin the world to the Amazon, but
it had a lot of thosecharacteristics. So it was, it
was just a wilderness at thattime.

Dean Klinkenberg (07:43):
It's sometimes hard for, I think for even me
too, to think about the scale ofthe impact of this river. It's
It's enormous today, and it hada huge impact in shaping the
area around there. You mentionedthe 100 mile wide floodplain in
places it's hard to imaginetoday, when you're driving
through the Mississippi Delta,that at one time that was

(08:05):
basically swamps and bottomlandforest, right?

Dr. Jack Killgore (08:09):
Right. It's, of course, today, it's all about
the dirt that that was depositedby that meandering river, you
know, over the 1000s of years,and that's why you have such a
rich soil and some of theagricultural greater than, you
know, many places in the world.

Dean Klinkenberg (08:29):
And because of the the size and the the impact
of the river, it supported apretty diverse and abundant
wildlife. So can you just get agive us a sense of what that
flora and fauna would have beenlike, and those pre-engineered
in the pre-engineered riversworld?

Dr. Jack Killgore (08:48):
Well, maybe, with a few exceptions, on
extinctions, a lot of the floraand fauna that existed before
European settlement still existstoday. And that's what people
don't realize, is that we reallyhad no extirpations or
extinction of species in modernday. What we have had is a

(09:12):
shrinkage, shrinkage of theaquatic environment. And that's
always been one of my goals, iswhat we have is in a lot it's
very natural in a lot of ways.
It's still that wildernessvalue, and I don't think people
appreciate that, because when Italk to folks about the
Mississippi today, they tend tothink that it's just a polluted

(09:35):
stream that's been channelized,that feeds nutrients to the Gulf
of Mexico, and it's nothing likethat. And so yes, there have
been changes, but we still havean incredible amount of
biodiversity in the river, boththe flora and the fauna. I mean,
I'm a fisheries biologist, soI'm more familiar with the

(09:56):
aquatic life than I am with theplant. Community, but we still
have Cypress Tupelo swamps outthere. Cypress tupelos were
very, very widespread at onetime. They were the first that
were cut down, but they stillexist in some of the scatters
and breaks so a variety ofhabitat types and a consistent
flow, and usually you have aconnection to the floodplain

(10:22):
almost every year, and that's animportant part of the Lower Miss
that you don't find in regulatedrivers. The Upper Miss, for
example, they don't really havea seasonal floodplain like you
have in the Mississippi.

Dean Klinkenberg (10:39):
Yeah, that's really in some parts of the
Upper Mississippi, the valley isso narrow anyway, there wouldn't
be that much floodplain likethere would be on the lower
Mississippi. What was the valueof those seasonal flooding
pulses to the life along the river?

Dr. Jack Killgore (10:54):
Well, the flood pulse is a flood pulse
concept. It's been studied foryears. We ignored it for for a
while, but we realized that thatannual flood pulse that moves
laterally into the floodplain,the fish and other aquatic life
follow that pulse. They utilizethat aquatic, terrestrial zone

(11:17):
that's that's being expanded asas the river increases in
elevation, and sometimes thosefloods will stay for months, and
then everything shrinks and itcomes back into the main stem
river, and that's what feeds theriver. The energy, the carbon
the young of year begin tothrive and grow. So recruitment

(11:41):
of fishes is very, verydependent upon that flood pulse,
and that's why it's so in a way,it's a unique because, like I
mentioned, if you look at theArkansas River and many of the
other tribs that have lock anddams, you know we don't have
that flood pulse, but we do herein the lower mass. So I tell
people, don't forget that thatflood pulse is what drives the

(12:04):
biodiversity of the LowerMississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg (12:10):
Excellent. So part of like, we've made a lot
of changes to the river overtime, and really for two primary
reasons, one, to improvenavigation. You mentioned the
forests and the the wood and theriver. And, you know, there are
lots of very vivid accounts fromriverboat pilots of log rafts
and other dangers theyencountered trying to drive

(12:31):
steamboats on the Lower Miss.
And so clearing that was one ofthe earlier engineering efforts,
but also flood prevention forcommunities and people that
lived along the river is anothermajor engineering project. Is it
the scale of the levees thatline the Lower Mississippi has
to be one of the largestengineering projects in the
world, ever undertaken. I wouldimagine. Do you know where it

(12:55):
fits in, in terms of humanengineering projects?

Dr. Jack Killgore (13:00):
Well, it certainly must be, because from
Cape Girardeau down to reallyBaton Rouge, you have what we
call the main line MississippiRiver levees. But there's a
history of that as well. I mean,the levee, the French started be
building levees back in the1700s around New Orleans, and
they would build them three orfour foot feet high. And then

(13:21):
here comes a flood. And theybuild them a little bit higher
and higher every year, and theynever could seem to build them
high enough. Well, the Corpsended up having a levee only
policy in the late 1800sthinking that if we build these
levees, the federal governmenttakes over and builds these
levees from Baton Rouge up toCape Girardeau, then we can

(13:42):
contain the greatest flood ofrecord. And of course, we had
the 1927 flood, which provedthat concept wrong. And that's
when the Corps began to look atother ways of controlling
floods, through diversionsbackwaters and continuing to
build the mainline MississippiRiver levees higher and higher,

Dean Klinkenberg (14:06):
And what has been sort of the general like
ecological impact of the changesalong the Lower Mississippi. You
You've already hinted we haven'tlost species, and maybe the
world has shrunk some, but tellus a little bit about how the
world has changed along theLower Mississippi with these
engineering projects.

Dr. Jack Killgore (14:25):
A lot of the what I call backwater or wetland
fishes. They suffered the most,in other words, because we
shrunk the floodplain down toreduced it by 80% a little bit
more than 80% we lost a lot ofthose swampy backwater areas

(14:46):
where you have a uniqueassemblage of wetland fishes
that thrive there, like pirateperch and taillight shiners. I
mean, just really small,diminutive fish, but they're
very characteristic of it.
That's what I've noticed., Well,when you get into the main
channel of the MississippiRiver, it really hadn't changed.
People may not realize that, butyou still have bendways and

(15:09):
straightways and crossings. Youhave huge sand bars. You have
huge gravel bars. You know thealthough they've they've been
impacted to a certain extent bythe wing dams or the dikes,
because the purpose of those isto constrict the channel in
order to maintain a navigationchannel year round, nine to 12

(15:33):
feet here in the lowerMississippi River, at least till
you get down to Baton Rouge andand so that that has created
what we would call sedimentationalong the channel border and the
shoreline, because the purposeof dikes is to trap sediment,
shrink the channel, constrictit, so you'll have that that low

(15:56):
water channel. So that's that'ssomething that we're dealing
with right now with a lot of theecosystem restoration projects
that are going on.

Dean Klinkenberg (16:06):
I think one area where you can really see
the impact of the the wing dikesis along the Missouri River.
There's some really greathistoric photos that show what
the river's channel looked likebefore there were many wing
dikes, and then how sedimentaccumulated along those dikes
and really narrowed the channel.
We'll get to the restorationprojects in just a minute, but I

(16:26):
think, like one of the thingsthat I think I've never fully
appreciated either until Ireally started spending time on
the Lower Miss, is justunderstanding how unique it is
to have this long uninterruptedchannel like I live on, you
know, I've spent most of my timeon the upper mist, where we have
locks and dams, you know, every20 or 30 miles or whatever. But

(16:47):
really, there are, what, 2000 orso miles of uninterrupted
channel from what around Gavin'sPoint Dam on the Missouri River
to the Gulf of Mexico. Can youtell us a little bit about why
that's important, why thatmatters.

Dr. Jack Killgore (17:04):
It's it's an aquatic highway. It's a corridor
where migratory fish such assturgeon, paddlefish, buffalo,
they they move sometimes over1000 miles. And the reason we
know that is through telemetrystudies that we and other

(17:25):
agencies have done. We'll tagfish, put receivers out there,
or we'll put an externalspaghetti tag on, and someone
catches it and sees my 1-800number, and they call me and
say, We just caught a fish inthe Missouri River, and I look
it up, well, we tagged it in theLower Mississippi River. And
that's when I began to realizethat a fish can come into the

(17:49):
Gulf and go 1200 miles up to StLouis on the Mississippi. Take a
left up to Gavin's point. Likeyou mentioned, another seven or
800 miles. So you have 2000miles of free flowing Missouri,
Mississippi River. And then Ibegan to research that. I said
there's really no other river inthe world except for the Amazon,

(18:11):
again, because all the othergreat rivers that the Yangtze
and the Congo and all of them,they have dams near the mouth of
the river, and we don't.
Fortunately, they realized thatyou don't need a lock and dam in
the lower river, because oncethe Ohio River comes in, there's
usually enough water to float abarge. And so the way that they

(18:32):
did it here is they did putdikes in, but we don't have the
the density of dikes in theLower Miss, as you mentioned in
the Missouri River. So youdidn't have those major changes
in the channel form here, as youdid in the Missouri although the
dikes are still there wasprobably 800 plus dikes in this

(18:54):
well, in about 800 miles ofriver. It's two to three to four
times that in the Middle Missand in the Missouri River. So
that's, that's, that's theresult of all the water that we
normally get, although we'vebeen in droughts here the last
couple of years.

Dean Klinkenberg (19:17):
Yeah, and we may be heading into another dry
year. Who know that we don'thave a lot of snow to melt this
year anyway? Let's talk a littlebit about that the world in the
main channel itself. When I wasworking on the Wild Mississippi,
I know there used to be kind ofa belief among biologists and

(19:37):
scientists that the mainchannel, especially on the river
bottom just wasn't that rich ofan environment. There wasn't a
lot of life there. But it seemslike we know a lot better now.
And there's, there's a lot ofvariety of, I don't know what
the right word is, habitats,like within the main channel
itself, slack water areas. Watertemperature varies. I guess

(19:58):
dissolved oxygen can vary.
Different areas. Can you justtell us a little bit about that
main channel environment and howmuch, even that much that can
vary?

Dr. Jack Killgore (20:07):
Well, the main channel really makes up
about 70% of the water volume ofthe channel itself, from top
bank down, I would say. Sothere's there's a lot of
habitat, but the reason that wethought that it was somewhat of
a barren area is that it's sohard to sample, you just can't
go out there with the gill netor electroshock and bow, which

(20:30):
is some of the traditional toolsthat fisheries biologists use in
order to understand what livesin that main channel. We were
able to sample the secondarychannels. There's about little
over 100 different sidechannels, or secondary channels,
which are very important to theecology of the Lower Miss.
They're still functional. We'restill trying to keep them open

(20:52):
and connected to the mainchannel. I mentioned the point
bars, the huge, huge sand barsand gravel bars that can go
miles and miles that if you youprobably walked on them. It is
like you're on the Sahara Desertsometimes, they're so big. And
and you have the dikes, whichalso form some very interesting

(21:14):
habitat types, especially theones that are notched but almost
all the dikes create these scourpools, which are highly used by
a variety of fish. They want toget out of the really strong
current. They move into thechannel border or into the dike
fields. And so we see a lot offish utilizing those structures
as habitat. So they're kind of,in a way, they're they do have

(21:36):
their impacts, like I said, butthey also have their benefits to
habitat complexity.

Dean Klinkenberg (21:44):
How much does the ecology of the of the
channel, or the main channelchange at the major confluences,
like when the Missouri Rivermeets the Mississippi, or the
Ohio River merges with theMississippi, does that change
much of the ecology or thenature of what can survive in
the river?

Dr. Jack Killgore (22:03):
You have a lot of similar species
composition all the way throughthe Missouri and the Mississippi
and even the Ohio River. They'reall kind of a pan there. The
species that we see here in theLower Miss, we also find in the
Ohio and the Middle Miss, theUpper Miss. There are some
exceptions. As you get furthernorth, you get more of your cool

(22:26):
water fishes like your walleye,for example. We don't really see
very many walleye here, but wedo see sauger, which is very
similar to a walleye. So yeah, Iit's, it's overall, you know,
species composition is probablyup to about 250 species in the

(22:47):
Mississippi River Basin. We haveat least over 100 in the Lower
Miss that that reproduce in theriver. They may be some of them
may be transient, but a lot ofthem are reproducing either in
the floodplain, because we dohave that intact floodplain, or
in the main channel itself.

Dean Klinkenberg (23:10):
So tell me a little bit then about what some
of the restoration projects areunder and tell, what are you,
what's the focus of therestoration efforts? What are
some of the larger goals?

Dr. Jack Killgore (23:22):
Well, restoration has a long, storied
history, and the Lower Miss fora long time was a stepchild in
restoration for various reasons,ecosystem restoration in the
basin really began in the UpperMississippi River, which you've
covered very well in yourpodcast, and that was due to the

(23:43):
navigation expansion programprimarily. That's where the
money came in. And the UpperMess restoration in the Missouri
River was a direct result of theEndangered Species Act on pallid
sturgeon. So the Corps in thatpart of the country had to began
looking at the populationintegrity and restoration of

(24:06):
sturgeon habitats. Same thing inthe Middle Miss. The Middle Miss
has restoration program, but itwas also a result of the
Endangered Species Act on notonly the navigation, but also
what we call a biologicalopinion that the navigation prod
project could harm the pallidsturgeon. So ecosystem

(24:29):
restoration projects startedthere in earnest in the St Louis
district, and they really werethe forerunners of going in
there and notching dikes andcreating islands and opening up
secondary channels, but thatreally hadn't, the money hadn't
really come into the Lower Miss.
But we had one organization thatchampioned that, called the

(24:50):
Lower Mississippi River, theLMRCC Lower Mississippi River
Conservation Committee, and. Andit was begun by Ron Nassar, and
now it's led by Angie Rodgers,but it's the six states that
border the Lower MississippiRiver come together, and they

(25:10):
develop plans every what theycall the slogan, "Restoring
America's Greatest River." I'vealways liked that slogan,
because I because really theMississippi is America's
greatest river, no doubt aboutit.

Dean Klinkenberg (25:25):
No argument from me.

Dr. Jack Killgore (25:26):
You may have some arguments from the Columbia
River folks, or, who knows, andso over and they, they began to
lobby Congress and and finally,in one of the water resource
development acts, they began thethe LMRRA. You know, everything
in the government has anacronym, but the Lower

(25:48):
Mississippi River ResourceAssessment, which was our first
opportunity to go into a certainstretch which and our first
stretch reach a river was nearMemphis and about 35 miles. And
we and all the states and thefederal agencies came together
and came up with a list ofecosystem restoration projects,

(26:10):
and that is now in Congress, andhopefully we'll receive money in
order to implement some of thoserestoration projects. So we
finally have a federally fundedrestoration effort going on in
the Lower Miss. It's notanything compared to the Upper
Miss, where you have theenvironmental management

(26:31):
program, but it's the beginning,I think, and people begin to
recognize the importance and thequality of this lower river. So
I was really excited about that.

Dean Klinkenberg (26:42):
Yeah, that's good when you think about a
project like that, and maybeit's a little bit of both of
these. Are you thinking aboutprojects targeting specific
species, recovery of specificspecies? Is it more general
about restoring certainhabitats? How do you prioritize
what kinds of restorationprojects to do?

Dr. Jack Killgore (27:02):
It's a little bit of both. We still have to be
concerned about the endangeredspecies, which are sturgeon. So
some of the main channel typeprojects are targeting sturgeon,
but there are other species thatco occur, that are riverine type

(27:24):
species that would also alsobenefit. When we get into the
floodplain, we try to look at atspecies diversity rather than
individual species, becausethere's so many different
species with differentlifestyles, different habitat
requirements, but they alldepend on, say, a connection to

(27:45):
an oxbow lake or even the borrowpits that were dug along to
build the levees up. They havebecome very important aquatic
habitats for a variety ofspecies as well. So overall, we
try to look at a community levelassessment rather than

(28:05):
individual species. Nothingwrong with the Endangered
Species Act. I'm not sayingthat, but we need to think
outside the box to say, how canwe benefit the maximum number of
species with our restorationprojects? And it's worked pretty

Dean Klinkenberg (28:20):
All right?
Well, you're a fisheries well.
biologist, so it would be ashame if we didn't have a chance
to geek out a little bit ondifferent kinds of fish species.
So why don't we run through someof the bigger ones first, and
maybe, like as we go throughthese, just tell us a little bit
about their habits. You know,what they're like, what their

(28:41):
lives are like, a little bitabout them like, let's just
start with paddlefish, like anold species in Mississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore (28:50):
Yes. Well, when I was building our research
team, I was able to hire a longterm friend and colleague, Dr
Jan Jeffrey Hoover, and he and Ihave worked together for over 30
years, and he has always taken aliking to paddlefish. He's done
a lot of work because they're sounique. You know, for years,

(29:13):
people thought, What in theworld is that paddle used for?
They thought it was used tomaybe muck up the bottom and
then they'd open their mouth,but, you know, finally, they
realized that that they areeating microscopic zooplankton.
And so the the paddle is is asensor working essentially, and
it can detect minute amount ofelectricity as plankton swim

(29:35):
into the water. And that's howthey they live, and that's why
they can get over 100 150 poundsjust on microscopic zooplankton.
They also make long distancemigrations for spawning. They
spawn over gravel for the mostpart, like sturgeon do, so

(29:55):
that's why we've been trying toprotect and restore gravel bars
for those type of species.
Unfortunately, they do have theblack eggs for caviar. So even
though they're not on theendangered species list, a lot
of states regulate theirnumbers, because if you don't,
then they would be overharvested, just like what we
just about did with sturgeon forThey. So

(30:31):
they've been been aroundunchanged, more or less, is the
time of the dinosaurs. That'swhat a lot of people like to
say. Kind of like sturgeon, too.
the caviar market. And, sothey're very primitive fish, and
So they're very unique fish, andreally the only species of its
kind, other than the Chinesepaddlefish and the Yangtze but
I know you've covered it in yourbook. I just finished reading
that they think that species isnow extinct. So the paddlefish

(30:54):
that book by the way, I enjoyedthat.
is, is the only one left to thatgroup of fishes.

Dean Klinkenberg (30:57):
Thank you.
So I imaginethat that paddle with the the
ability to sense those minuteelectrical changes in the water.
That seems like something thatwas probably an adaptation to
living in muddy water, maybe.

Dr. Jack Killgore (31:12):
Yes, it is. I mean, Shark skates and rays,
they, they're all kind ofsimilar. They still, they also
have that capability as well,and yes, and people say, How
can, how can anything live inthis muddy water where they're
uniquely adapted to muddy waterthey don't necessarily have to

(31:32):
see. Paddlefish have theirelectro receptor cells, and
catfish have all types of tastebuds and can detect movement
vibrations in the water, so theydon't necessarily have to see
because they evolved in thistype of muddy environment.

Dean Klinkenberg (31:50):
Well, all right, so let's move on to
sturgeon now, and there's morethan one kind of sturgeon. Tell
us first a little bit about whatwhat species of sturgeon are
most common in the LowerMississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore (31:59):
Okay, well, based upon our trotlining, and
we put out 1000s of trotlines,that's how we sample the bottom
of the Mississippi River. It wasyears ago. We were coming into a
boat ramp on the Big SunflowerRiver, Mississippi, and
commercial fisherman was takinghis boat out, and it was full of

(32:21):
buffalo. I never will forgetthat scene. So we started
talking to him, because we'refisheries biologist, and I asked
him, I said, Have you evercaught sturgeon in the
Mississippi? He said, I catch'em all the time on trop lines.
Well, the next thing you know,we contract with this commercial
fisherman. His name is BillLancaster, and we worked with
him for 15 years, and like Imentioned, put out 1000s of

(32:43):
trotlines, and what we found isthat blue catfish is a number
one, large bodied fish on the onthe bottom of the Mississippi
River. But number two is shovelnose sturgeon, which kin to the
pallid, but they're much, muchmore abundant compared to the
pallids. And then you have yourpallid sturgeon, which is the

(33:08):
second type of sturgeon thatlives in the Mississippi. We get
lake sturgeon coming out of theGreat Lakes, moving south, and
they have been stocked, andtheir populations have been
recovering quite a bit, andwe're starting to pick them up
here in the Lower Miss. And thenyou have the gulf sturgeon,
which comes really, it prefersjust to live in the Gulf Coastal

(33:30):
tributaries like the Pearl andthe Pascagoula, but sometimes
they'll come up the mouth of theMississippi, you know, into that
lower reach. So we have fourspecies of sturgeon here in the
Mississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg (33:42):
Was it the shovelnose that were the
smaller, the smallest of thespecies, and then the lake
sturgeon were the big ones?

Dr. Jack Killgore (33:50):
Yes. Well, the lake sturgeon, can get up
several 100 pounds. The pallidshere in the Lower Miss, very
rarely get up to 10 to 15,although they can get up to 50
pounds in the in the UpperMissouri and but the shovelnose
are typically anywhere from fiveto six, seven pounds. That's a

(34:13):
big shovel nose.

Dean Klinkenberg (34:16):
So you mentioned paddlefish need gravel
bars to complete their lifecycle, to reproduce. What are
what kind of settings orcharacteristics to the sturgeon
need for reproduction?

Dr. Jack Killgore (34:29):
Well, it's the gravel bars are usually
located in the upstream reach ofthese bendways. You could look
at right where the Ohio comesin. There's a lot of gravel
bars. The floodplains not asexpansive as it is as you go
further south, but there's a lotmore gravel but then as you go
further south, the gravel barsdiminish. Once you get below

(34:51):
Natchez, you very rarely seegravel bars again, but the other
but the other part of that isthat the batture is, the land
between the levees, increases asyou go downstream, so you have a
wider floodplain. The gravel isis a primary substrate for a

(35:13):
variety of riverine fishes forspawning and even rearing.
Unfortunately, with dikes,that's where a lot of the dikes
are in the upper part of abendway to push that water
towards the outside bendway andwe cover the gravel bars. So
we've been monitoring andsurveying gravel bars, trying to

(35:34):
maybe change the dimensions ofdikes in order to scour sand off
of gravel that used to be there,and that's that's something
that's ongoing. We want topreserve gravel bars. To me,
gravel bars are not onlyimportant for spawning and
rearing, but they are also partof the geomorphology of the

(35:55):
river that are important andkind of keeping that channel in
place maybe preventing head cutsfrom happening. There's a lot of
advantages, and also, there arewindows of time you've probably
walked on gravel bars, Dean,anytime we have a lunch break,
we head for if there's a gravelbar, that's where we're heading,

(36:16):
and we look, and we'll findartifacts of sunken steamships.
We'll find Indian beads. We'llfind paleo animal bones, not all
the time, but you know, we'reall looking for them. They are
windows of time for the for theMississippi River.

Dean Klinkenberg (36:37):
Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting
myself, just wanted to remindyou that if you'd like to know
more about the MississippiRiver, check out my books. I
write the Mississippi ValleyTraveler guide books for people
who want to get to know theMississippi better. I also write
the Frank Dodge mystery seriesthat is set in places along the
Mississippi. My newest book, TheWild Mississippi goes deep into

(37:01):
the world of Old Man River.
Learn about the varied andcomplex ecosystems supported by
the Mississippi, the plant andanimal life that depends on
them. And where you can go toexperience it all. Find any of
these wherever books are sold.
Oh, they're fantastic to wanderaround. I learned a lot about
geology and such, walking aroundthe gravel bars with John Ruske

(37:25):
from the Quapaw Canoe Companyand some of the other folks,
some of his other guides. Theyare they're remarkable places.
All right, so the gravel barsare important. Are there? So
which species of sturgeon arestruggling right now? Then you
said shovel nose seem to bepretty abundant which ones are
having a harder time?

Dr. Jack Killgore (37:43):
It's the pallid sturgeon, and there's
several reasons for that. One ofthem is that we do. We built
dams in the historic migratorypathways. But I think more
importantly, there was anunregulated caviar market. And
since the pallids were thelarger of the two, that's a lot
of times they would be targetinglarge gravid females. And recent

(38:09):
time, with the advent ofgenetics, the geneticists are
telling us that the shovelnoseand the pallets are hybridizing
with each other. So we don'treally have purebred pallets in
the Lower Miss. They're mostlyconfined to the Upper Missouri,
but I'm telling you, you know wewe catch a pallid and we can
identify it based upon itsoutside characteristics, and it

(38:32):
looks a lot different than ashovelnose. You have to have a
trained eye, but they are verysimilar to each other, and there
could be hybridization going on.
It appears that there is.

Dean Klinkenberg (38:46):
Yeah, I don't know if you know this off the
top of your head, but like, justhow, how big is the caviar
market? Like, how, how muchcaviar is, you know, produced or
harvested from the fish in theLower Mississippi?

Dr. Jack Killgore (39:01):
Well, for sturgeon, now since pallids are
federally endangered, theylisted the shovelnose under the
similarity of appearance rule,because a lot of people can't
tell them apart. So that reallyeliminated the caviar market.
Almost through the entireMississippi River Basin, there

(39:22):
are caviar ranchers, I guess,where they'll grow out sturgeon,
and they'll get the caviar fromthere. They also, like I
mentioned, get caviar frompaddlefish, that it's regulated,
it's highly washed, but that'sanother way they both in the I

(39:44):
mean, they'll they'll find eggsalmost any type of fish, and if
they taste decently, I guessthey become caviar. But the
caviar market has really shrunkdramatically. It used to be a
mainstay for commercialfishermen, and you just don't
see that like that todayanymore.

Dean Klinkenberg (39:59):
Yeah. Well, let's move on to another big
fish. Let's talk a little bitabout alligator gar. So tell us.
I don't think there may be asnumerous in the main channel the
Mississippi as they might be insome other rivers, but tell us a
little bit about these beasts.

Dr. Jack Killgore (40:17):
Well, surprisingly, we're seeing more
and more alligator gar pop up inour surveys, not only our
surveys, but other state andfederal agency because they they
were really a misunderstoodfish. They were considered a
rough fish, and so they put abounty on their head trying to
eliminate the apex predator ofthe Mississippi River. But they

(40:39):
didn't think of it that way backin those days, they just thought
that these alligator gar,because they get 300 plus
pounds, are eating theirprecious sport fish, their
bluegill, their bass, and sothey put a price on their head,
and they just about wiped themout. But now we appreciate
alligator gar, plus they can bea predator on the invasive carp

(41:01):
and and, and, like I said, theyare one of the top predators, so
they're now stocking alligatorgar back into the river, and
we're seeing their numbersincrease in our trawling
samples, we're picking upoccasionally alligator gar along
the main channel the MississippiRiver. Of course, we know they

(41:21):
kind of prefer those backwaters,and they spawn in backwaters
over vegetation. But thealligator gar, I think, has a
more positive outcome than itdid 20 years ago, for sure.

Dean Klinkenberg (41:34):
They get, they can get enormous in size. I
forget the exact stats, but likethere were, the largest one ever
caught was somewhere aroundVicksburg, maybe five or six
years ago, maybe a little bitmore was what, 300 pounds.

Dr. Jack Killgore (41:49):
That's right, that's right, it was, it was
caught by a commercial fishermanin one of our lakes just north
of Vicksburg, Mississippi here.
And it just shows you that westill have very large alligator
gar and they're great. I mean,who wouldn't want to catch a 300
pound fish? I tell well, you cancatch them and you can eat them,

(42:09):
just don't eat the eggs, becausethe green eggs are poisonous to
humans or to to mammals.

Dean Klinkenberg (42:17):
And they look scary, but they're not
aggressive toward people at all,as I understand it, right?

Dr. Jack Killgore (42:22):
That's right.
The there have been studies. Theriver monster series did a
series down here to see ifalligator gar actually attacking
and killing people. There havebeen some reports of alligator
gar attacking a person. But it'sprobably, you know, not

(42:42):
directly. It may, they just mayhave thought it was some other
type of food. So no, there'snever been a report of alligator
gar attacking or killing a humanthat I'm aware of.

Dean Klinkenberg (42:56):
So, what are their main, what's the main
source of their diet? What dothey prefer to eat?

Dr. Jack Killgore (43:00):
That's another thing is they're not
eating the sport fish. They'reeating shad, gizzard and thread
fin shad, which is the primaryforage base for a lot of your
top predators in the MississippiRiver. And there are millions
and millions of shad. So it'snot, not like we're not we're
going to lose shad. And that'swhy they are successful, because

(43:23):
there is plenty of habitat,there's plenty of spawning area,
and there is plenty of food forthem.

Dean Klinkenberg (43:32):
So I know that we've we've had folks who have
talked about the impact ofremoving apex predators on land
from land ecosystems like theremoval of wolves and the impact
that had particularly on thingslike deer populations. What was
the impact in the fisheries inthe Lower Mississippi of losing
an apex predator like thosealligator gar?

Dr. Jack Killgore (43:53):
Well, it's really hard to say. I and you
know, but if you go back 40years when the invasive carp
began to appear in the riversystem, and it was about the
same time that alligator garwere being eliminated, because
they are considered rough fish,and an invasive carp can grow so

(44:16):
quickly that they outgrow themouth size of a lot of your
other predators that couldpossibly eat them, whereas
alligator gar, you know, theycould chomp down a 10 pound
silver carp, and no problem atall. So that may have been one
reason that we saw the expansionof invasive fish. It's hard to

(44:40):
say. You know, when you take anapex predator out of a
population of fish, it's, youknow, it's still unknown. I
guess is exactly how that cameabout. But most people say
justify the the development ofaquaculture facilities for
alligator guard as onebiological control for invasive

(45:03):
carp.

Dean Klinkenberg (45:04):
All right, go alligator gar, right,.

Dr. Jack Killgore (45:07):
That's right.

Dean Klinkenberg (45:07):
I want to get to the invasive fish in just a
minute. But we can't talk aboutthe Mississippi and not at least
touch on catfish. And youmentioned briefly the blue
catfish, which are the biggestof the species. Tell us a little
bit about the variety of catfishin the Lower Mississippi, and
one or two things that maybepeople don't know about, their
habits, or their life, lifecycle, or whatever.

Dr. Jack Killgore (45:29):
Well, we have three species of large bodied
catfish. The blue cat is by farthe well, not by far, but it's
the largest, I think therecord's about 130 pounds. And
then we have the flatheads. Theyget up about 100 pounds. And
then we have the channelcatfish. That may be maximum 50

(45:50):
pounds. We don't see as manychannel cats as we do blue cats.
Blue cats are by far the numberone catfish in the Mississippi
River, and that's why you havethese catfish tournaments, and
they're all targeting mostlyblue catfish, because they do
get very large. One of ourstudies have shown, though, that

(46:10):
as you get further, as you gofurther south, you tend to get
more blue catfish, and they alsoget larger. And it could be
because you get that estuarinespecies coming up from, you
know, up to north towards NewOrleans, and you have a bigger
food base. But it's stillunknown exactly why that trend
shows in this but, but there's alot of catfish. Everyone that

(46:36):
fishes the Mississippi Riverusually either goes after the
catfish or the white bass in themain channel the Mississippi
sometimes you'll even get astriped bass, but, but it's
mainly the the catfish thatsustains, really a growing trend
of catfish tournaments up anddown this river.

Dean Klinkenberg (46:58):
So how far north do the blue catfish range?
Because I know we don't havethem on the Upper Mississippi
like about how far north is thenorthern extent of their range?

Dr. Jack Killgore (47:08):
Well, I don't know we we did some studies in
the Upper Miss probably up toRock Island, if I remember, we
were catching some blue cats upthere. I'm not as familiar with
the species composition in theUpper Miss as I am in the Lower
Mess. But I know blue cats havealso been transplanted into
other regions that they aren'tnative and and they create a

(47:31):
problem. And flatheads too. Theydon't they become, all all of a
sudden, they become an apexpredator on native fish that
that are native to that area.

Dean Klinkenberg (47:46):
So, so catfish, yeah, what's their
diet? What do they like to eat?

Dr. Jack Killgore (47:52):
The the flatheads typically only eat
live fish, or you, you can alsoget them on cut skipjack,
herring and worms, nightcrawlers, but it's primarily
fish. Blue cats eat the shadalmost anything that they
encounter, because there is alot of different minnows and

(48:13):
darters. They're small, but theydrum, buffalo, they co-occur
with the catfish. We see thosein their diet. So they're
opportunistic, is really whatthey are. They'll eat anything
that gets close to them. And Iguess that's why they're so
successful and so numerous, isthey do have a variety, a very

(48:34):
diet that allows them to switchseasonally or even based upon
the location they're in.

Dean Klinkenberg (48:43):
So other than those fish that we just touched
on, what were some of the othermost populous species in the
Lower Mississippi?

Dr. Jack Killgore (48:51):
Buffalo.
There's three species ofbuffalo. Buffalo, in many cases
here in the south. If you go tothe fish market, people are
buying the buffalo fish ratherthan the catfish. They they
consider buffalo a delicacy,especially buffalo ribs, which
are very good. I've eaten thembefore. So you have the big
mouth that are mainly in kind ofthe backwaters. The small mouth

(49:13):
buffalo is the most common. Butthen you have the black buffalo,
which are just super big andstrong. They're just an
impressive fish when you catchthem. But they're they're fairly
common. They're doing very wellin the Mississippi River. Drum,
freshwater drum. When you're outfishing, for example, you'll see

(49:36):
your pole go boop, boop, boop.
And that's usually one of thosebait stealers, those freshwater
drum trying to nibble at theworm or whatever. But, but they
can get to be 20 or 30 poundsthemselves. So they are
interesting fish. They're theonly freshwater drum that we
have all the other drum orusually associated with the

(49:58):
estuarine or coastalenvironment, like your redfish
and spotted sea trout, they'realso in the drum family. What
people don't realize, though, isthe smaller fish we have, these
fish called the these littleminnows and chubs, a shoal chub,
shoal chub is what it's called.
There are probably millions ofthose, and they are eaten by

(50:21):
pallid sturgeon, but, butthere's the different minnows
and shiners, and there's, wehave a few darters here that are
very impressive, the riverdarter, the crystal darter,
which is one of the largestdarters in North America. So
there's a variety of fish inthat main channel. It is not a

(50:42):
barren habitat, but the reason,like I said earlier, is that
it's so hard to sample, and it'sdangerous to sample in some
cases.

Dean Klinkenberg (50:53):
Right. I'm sure you've got some stories
about, you know, puttingyourself at risk. You probably
didn't need to, just to do alittle bit of sampling. But do
you have anything, any memoriesat the top of your head where
you found yourself in adifficult spot when you were
trying to do your research?

Dr. Jack Killgore (51:09):
Well, yes, you know, we've we've been
entrained by high currentsbefore. I think, really though,
I've worked with seasoned riverpeople that you know, knock on
wood. We've never had any majorincidences over the 30 plus
years I've worked on that river.
We've had a lot of close calls.

(51:32):
One case, I know, we lost alower unit on a dike. We didn't
know it was there. And you know,if you're out there, you have to
watch out for those stone dikes,because they will take your
lower unit off. Or, even worse,I so I've I just, you know, it's
a thrill to be out there, andthat's that's one reason that it

(51:52):
amazes me, is, is just thewilderness and the grandeur of
it all. I tell people that youcan look one way and see exactly
what Mark Twain saw as a cubpilot, and then you look another
way and you can see all theriver engineering work. So it's
this dual kind of capacity thatyou that you deal with there.

(52:16):
But so yeah, I don't know. We'vehad a few other incidences that
they're kind of sad finding, youknow, some some people there.
But other than that, it's we'vebeen very fortunate that over
the years, we've been able toget on and off that river
without any major mishaps. Andit's the people that I've worked
with that smart, and they knowthe river, they know how to

(52:40):
operate boats, and that's beenan important part of it.

Dean Klinkenberg (52:45):
Well, let's wrap up the fish discussion by
talking about some of theinvasives then up in this part
of the river, the big head andsilver carp get a lot of play
because they're exciting to filmas you're taking a boat through
those areas, I assume they mustbe present in the Lower
Mississippi too. I don't knowthat I hear as much about them
being as problematic, but, youknow, tell us a little bit about

(53:07):
the status of of the invasivefish along the lower
Mississippi.

Dr. Jack Killgore (53:12):
Okay, well, they began and they were
initially introduced into theLower Mississippi River. Came
out of Arkansas. They commoncarp were brought in in the late
1800s as a food fish, althoughno one likes to eat them, and
that's how carp got a bad name,I think, because common carps
aren't nearly as tasty as yourbig heads and silvers. But then

(53:36):
in the in the '50s, 1950s and'60s, they started bringing in
grass carp to eat the problemaquatic vegetation. Well, they
escaped into the MississippiRiver and began establishing
reproductive populations. And wecatch them, continue to catch
them today. But then theybrought in the big head carp and

(53:57):
the silver carp to eat plankton,because they're planktivores out
of the aquaculture ponds, andthey escaped, and they establish
reproductive populations. So itall began in the Lower
Mississippi River. And from thatpoint, these fish, the silver
the big head, the grass carp,and then later on, the black

(54:19):
carp, that's the most recentintroduction. They were brought
in to eat these snails out ofcatfish ponds, which were
intermediate host for aparasite. Well, they escaped,
and now they are reproducing inthe Mississippi so, so they
began to expand, because theyneed flowing water to reproduce.
Well, there's plenty of flowingwater in the Mississippi River,

(54:42):
and then they need backwaterhabitat for rearing. Well,
there's plenty of backwaterhabitat the oxbow lakes and and
the meander scars and everythingthat that exist. So they found
it like a buffet, and they justbegan to grow their numbers and
go move north and move south.
And of course, that's why,eventually, the Chicago district
put in the electric barriers tokeep them out of the Great

(55:06):
Lakes. But they we've also foundtheir move south, and they do
have a little bit of toleranceto salinity, so they can move in
to slightly saline water, maybeup to 10 parts per 1000. So now
they could move along thecoastline and get into the
coastal waters like the Pearl,Pascagoula, Mobile. Maybe

(55:29):
someday they're coming down theTennessee River into the
Tenn-Tom. They're trying to keepthem out of the Tenn-Tom,
because then they do get intothe Mobile. So it's, it's a
pandemic, really, it's, they'refine. We're finding them almost
everywhere. And they do jump, asas everyone knows, the silvers
will jump. They're they get 25to 30 pounds. And if you get hit

(55:52):
by one of those fish, you knowit, I've been hit so many times,
I've got a black eye. But youknow, it's I tell people, unless
Americans really develop a tastefor carp, like they have in
Europe now, people consider carpa delicacy, and not a lot of

(56:12):
parts of Europe and in Asia,they're the number one cultured
fish in the world. If you don'tdo that, then we're just going
to have to deal with them likewe have to deal with fire ants
down here. They're, they're notgoing anywhere, and just have to
be careful and aware that whenyou're in an area, they can jump
and they can't hit you and theycan't hurt you.

Dean Klinkenberg (56:33):
Yeah, I've been struck a couple times in a
canoe, of all things. So it's,it's unpleasant, but it is
memorable. It does make for agood story after.

Dr. Jack Killgore (56:44):
You know, Dean, it's interesting though,
that they, you know, they reallyhaven't altered, in my opinion,
the community structure of mainchannel Mississippi River.
Where they do have an impact isgetting into the backwaters,
where they become one of thedominant fish, and they disrupt
nest building fish. Likesunfish, like your bass and your
bluegill, they compete for food,and that's where you're seeing

(57:08):
the impact to our native fishes,not necessarily in the main
channel. Not to say thatsomething may change over time,
but that's just been the recenttrend that I've noticed.

Dean Klinkenberg (57:19):
Right. So those are the those species in
particular that you mentioned,the bluegill, they're the ones
that are most threatened by thepresence of the the invasive
carp.

Dr. Jack Killgore (57:29):
Yes, any nest building fish. Because what
happens is those carp get intothese lakes where, you know the
bass and the bluegill, that'swhere they construct their nest.
But then you get this hoard,this school of carp coming in
there, and they're they'rerooting around, and then they
scare away the adults that areprotecting the fish, and then

(57:52):
other fish come in there andgobble the eggs. In other words,
they disrupt the entire nestbuilding and rearing process of
your sunfishes and other otherkind of fish that that that
spawn along in shallower water.

Dean Klinkenberg (58:08):
Have you noticed a decline in those kinds
of fish, or those fish adaptingand finding somewhere else to
nest?

Dr. Jack Killgore (58:14):
Oh no, we've noticed. And really it's, it's,
it's the public that's noticedmore. We've been called to
several meetings, and people go,how come we're not catching
bluegill and bass and crappie inour lake anymore? And they say
it's because of those dadgumcarp are in there, affecting
their populations. And it'sprobably true, you know, because

(58:38):
it's it could be other things,but you would think that that
hordes of these carp moving inare going to disrupt any kind of
native fish community, andthat's, apparently was what
happening.

Dean Klinkenberg (58:51):
I will put into play. I can't say that I've
eaten silver carp or big head Idon't remember. I've had smoked
carp from a fish market up onthe Upper Mississippi. So it was
probably common carp. Probablycommon carp. I thought it was
delicious, you know, smokedcarp. It was almost as good as
smoked salmon in my book.

Dr. Jack Killgore (59:09):
Yes, it is.
They renamed it down in NewOrleans, called a copi for
copious and there's a chef downthere that has renamed it and
trying to get people to eat it.
So they are good eating fish.
They have a lot of innermuscular bones, so you have to
really know how to deal withthat. But as far as their their

(59:31):
white sweet meat, it's, it's,it's the best. I mean, it's, I
don't want to go that far,maybe, but they are good to eat.

Dean Klinkenberg (59:44):
Well, maybe we'll continue to campaign for
people to be more adventurouseaters and try more carp.
There's certainly plenty of thatavailable for us to sample from.
You know, I forgot to ask you atthe very beginning, and maybe
this is a good way to kind ofwrap things up a little bit, but
you've been working along theMississippi for a long time.

(01:00:05):
What? What is it about theMississippi that got your
attention and keeps you comingback so so many years?

Dr. Jack Killgore (01:00:13):
Well, even as a boy, you know, reading Mark
Twain's books, I was alwaysfascinated by the Mississippi. I
I had no idea that once I joinedthis organization, this research
organization with the Corpscalled the waterways Experiment
Station. Next thing I know, I'mright on the banks of the
Mississippi River, even evenbefore that though, I mean,

(01:00:36):
growing up in NorthwestArkansas, my buddies and I, we
would on the weekends, we grabour battered aluminum canoes and
head for the river. So I alwayshave been fascinated with the
rivers, and it was always mygoal to try to get projects,
research projects and monitoringon the Mississippi River. It
took about 10 years once Ijoined what the Waterways

(01:00:58):
Experiment Station, which is nowcalled the Engineer Research and
Development Center. I'm justrecently retired from there, but
it was a dream come true, Dean,and I have enjoyed every minute
of it, and I miss it. In fact, Ifish with my own boat out there,

(01:01:20):
so I still get out on theMississippi River. I plan on
continuing to fish as long as Ican, but a lot of times it's not
fishing. I'll just take some oneof these inlets and go into the
backwaters, and it's like ajungle back there and and that's
always amazed me, is just theisolation that you can feel. And

(01:01:40):
then there's just a tremendousdiversity and abundance. We
would put out trotlines with 60hooks, and in the winter, we
would bring those trotlines in,and there was a fish on every
single hook. They filled theboat up. And that hasn't
changed. That still occurstoday. So there's a lot of
reasons, and I've been verythankful that I've had the

(01:02:01):
opportunity to work for such awonderful organization like like
the Corps, with the EngineerResearch and Development Center.

Dean Klinkenberg (01:02:08):
Do you have a favorite spot or two that you
don't mind giving away?

Dr. Jack Killgore (01:02:13):
Oh well, I mean, locally here, I you know,
there's a place here, it goesback into the Civil War history
where Grant was here he wastrying to cut off the bendway of
the Mississippi River. Well,that didn't work. Well, mother

(01:02:33):
nature did it right at the turnof the century, and left
Vicksburg high and dry. So theymoved the mouth of the Yazoo
River, so it will flow in frontof Vicksburg. And the reason I'm
telling you that is where theformer mouth is, you can enter
that and go way back into theswampy areas. And it's just,
it's, you know, you get afeeling of the way it was before

(01:02:56):
all the alterations occurred.
That's one of my favorite areas.
And then I also fish with aprofessional fishing guide, a
blue cat fishing guide, BobCrosby, and he takes me to
places that he's found. And I'mnot sure if I should tell you
what those places are, becauseit's one of his favorite fishing
holes. He catches these bigcatfish, but it's around
Vicksburg, so you can go almostanywhere, up and down this river

(01:03:20):
and find adventure, isolationand wilderness. It's just a
wonderful time out there.

Dean Klinkenberg (01:03:26):
Fantastic.
Jack, thank you so much fortaking the time to talk with me
today and share your expertise,and I really appreciate you
taking this time this morning.

Dr. Jack Killgore (01:03:38):
I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank
you, Dean, I really enjoy yourpodcast.

Dean Klinkenberg (01:03:43):
Thanks. Keep up the good work out there,
saving our fisheries.

Dr. Jack Killgore (01:03:47):
I'm a cheerleader for 'em.

Dean Klinkenberg (01:03:50):
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this
episode, subscribe to the serieson your favorite podcast app so
you don't miss out on futureepisodes. I offer the podcast
for free, but when you supportthe show with a few bucks
through Patreon to help keep theprogram going, just go to
patreon.com/dean.klinkenberg, ifyou want to know more about the

(01:04:10):
Mississippi River, check out mybooks. I write the Mississippi
Valley Traveler guidebooks forpeople who want to get to know
the Mississippi better. I alsowrite the Frank Dodge mystery
series that's set in placesalong the river. Find them
wherever books are sold. TheMississippi Valley Traveler
podcast is written and producedby me, Dean Klinkenberg.
Original Music by Noah Fence.
See you next time.