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larger size than males: all pikeminnow identified as males in this and other studies have been <br />less than 800 mm long; females from the Colorado River have been as large as 965 mm. <br />New, gender-specific growth curves were constructed based on average annual growth <br />increments. These curves indicated that females grow faster than males, but do not <br />necessarily live any longer. Because all very large pikeminnow were found to be females, the <br />female-specific growth curve was employed to estimate age of the largest fish. Based on <br />these findings, the average age of 900-mm long pikeminnow was revised down to 39 years <br />from an earlier estimate of 56 years. <br />Average body condition (Kn) for almost all length-classes of pikeminnow significantly <br />declined between the early and recent study periods in both reaches. Mean Kn of pikeminnow <br />500-599 mm long was relatively constant in the upper reach during 1998-2000, but <br />significantly increased in the lower reach during the same time period. <br />As previously reported, length-frequency and scale-aging analyses indicated that many <br />fish recruited from the 1985-1987 year classes, accounting for an increase of adults in the <br />mid-1990s. Especially high spring runoff in 1983-1984 evidently created favorable <br />environmental conditions that resulted in high reproductive success and survival of young <br />during 1985-1987, years of moderately high spring runoff. New data presented here revealed <br />more recent recruitment from the 1990-1994 year classes, although this was lower than for <br />the 1985-1987 year classes. The upper reach length-class containing the greatest percentage <br />of individuals during 1991-1994 was the 550-599-mm-group; however, this shifted to the <br />600-649-mm-group during 1998-2000. This increase in length of the most common-size fish <br />resulted from the pulse of fish produced during the mid 1980s continuing to grow and work <br />its way up through the age classes. <br />An experimental exercise in predicting change in adult abundance using population point <br />estimates, growth rates, length frequency, and survival estimates was attempted with mixed <br />results. The estimated number of individuals capable of growing to adult size by the <br />following year was calculated and added to the current-year population point estimate of <br />adults; the number of adults expected to die based on the average annual mortality rate was <br />then subtracted. The resulting predictions of adult numbers in the following year was <br />calculated for all years for which the requisite values were available. These were compared <br />ix