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<br />21 <br />Sex and Stage of Maturity <br />In most bass populations, males outnumber females at any given time <br />on the spawning grounds, and male bass normally arrive on the spawning <br />grounds before females during migrations (Raney, 1952). More than twice <br />as many males as females were captured during the two study years in the <br />mixing zone (Table 5). <br />During 1980, sampling began on April 26 when surface water <br />temperature was 13°C. Sexually mature male bass were captured as <br />soon as sampling was initiated in 1980, whereas sexually mature females <br />were not captured until May 20 when water temperature was 16°C. <br />Spent females first appeared in the 1980 catch on June 11 and were <br />captured during the remainder of the sampling period. A single spent <br />male was positively identified on June 16, 1980 and males which <br />appeared to be partially spent were captured after June 1. <br />Whereas the early part of the spawning run was sampled during <br />1980, the later part was sampled in 1981. Evidently, bass had <br />already begun spawning when sampling was initiated in 1981 at water <br />temperature of 16°C. The first bass captured on May 26 was a spent <br />female,and spent fish were captured throughout the remainder of the <br />sampling period. Over 40% of bass captured during 1981 were spent <br />whereas less than 10% of those caught in 1980 were spent. Warmer <br />water temperatures and later sampling period during 1981 are probably <br />responsible for the capture of a greater percentage of spent fish.