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17 The aspects of depth and geomorphology that chazacterize the preferred habitat of YOY squawfish may be combined into one feature; that of persistence. The persistence of individual habitats was monitored over time using the aerial video prints matched against field observations. Habitats associated with migrating sandwaves tend to be transient within a season. The overall quantity of shallow habitats fluctuates slightly, while the actual locations of the habitats continuously change. However, deep backwater habitats associated with secondary channels tend to be more permanent than those associated with migrating sandwaves, and often persist from the end of the spring runoff through laze fall and into the following spring, or even for several yeazs. These "quality" permanent habitats are likely to be instrumental in overwinter survival of squawfish, but they must shaze this superior habitat with competitive species. Physical habitat measurements were compazed with the digitized video interpretation for `92 and `93. The small change inflows generally experienced between the video acquisition and the physical sampling affected the amount of measured habitat significantly. However, on the one occasion that video and sampling occurred on the same day, the video interpretation slightly underestimated the habitat. The types of habitats identified both on screen and on the ground were the large, good quality habitats i.e. SC-backwaters, Flooded Tributaries and HS azeas. The ones most likely to be missed were the small MS sites in which it was often difficult to separate wet sand from shallow water. This also resulted in some additional azeas identified on the video, but not on the ground. If not completely accurate in measuring total habitat, the video should be useful as a measure of total availability of "quality" habitat. It is extremely useful in determining the persistence of each habitat. Since habitat quantity is not a good predictor of year-class strength, video interpretation of habitat quantity would not be a useful tool in that respect.