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typical secondary channel backwaters, which may explain the general lack of use by Colorado <br />pikeminnow. <br />Recruitment of the YOYpikeminnow to Age 1 + <br />Monitoring efforts for juvenile and adult fishes indicated the 1993 and 1994 cohort of <br />YOY pikeminnow recruited to Age 1+ better than the 1992 or 1995 cohorts. Recruitment of the <br />abundant 1996 cohort was beyond the scope of this study. Neither study measuring YOY <br />pikeminnow abundance in Deso/Gray reported a particularly strong cohort in 1994. However, <br />Day et al. observed excellent growth of the 1994 cohort increasing from a mean total length of <br />24.9 mm in July to 57.7 mm by September. Pikeminnow nursery habitat sampling near Ouray, <br />Utah and in the lower Green River also revealed small numbers of YOY pikeminnow in 1994, <br />however the fish in those reaches reportedly grew to an exceptionally large size by the fall as <br />well (Trammell and Chart 1998; Day et al. 1997). This large size in the fall likely- explains the <br />good overwinter survival. Overwinter flows are discussed above in relation to chub recruitment. <br />In 1995, YOY Colorado pikeminnow were not encountered until September sampling and were <br />extremely small with a mean total length of 24.8 mm (n=96). A subset of the 1996 cohort was <br />measured at a mean total length of 38.4 mm (n=915) in September. <br />Syrnpatric species in low velocity habitats <br />Speckled dace was the only other native species to show a correlation between CPUE and <br />flow parameters. Like Colorado pikeminnow, this fish showed a strong negative association <br />(rz=0.99) to duration of flows above 75% of the peak. Fathead minnow and red shiner CPUE <br />exhibited negative correlations with both peak flow (rZ=0.28 and rz=0.34, respectively) and <br />duration of flow above 50% of the peak (r2=0.55 and rz=0.35, respectively). Sand shiner CPUE <br />in August and September was negatively correlated to duration of flow the previous spring. The <br />results of the monitoring efforts revealed little or no correlation between the densities of <br />nonnative cyprinids and Green River peak flow. In fact, annual monitoring revealed nonnative <br />cyprinid densities were highest in 1995. The timing of the monitoring-trips was such that during <br />many yeazs crews were sampling nonnative cyprinids that were largely produced the previous <br />year (i.e. Age l+) (see Report C; figure 2), rather than the current year's reproduction. When <br />red shiner CPEs (monitoring data) were regressed against the previous years peak a stronger <br />negative correlation (rz = 0.14) was found. Day et al. (Report B) reported black crappie CPUE <br />was negatively correlated with duration of flow above 75% of the peak (r-2=0.48). <br />Fish Community Monitoring: Large bodied fish <br />-The morphology of the chubs of Deso/Gray canyons is unique relative to what these <br />researchers have seen in Westwater and Cataract Canyons. Many of the chubs handled in <br />Deso/Gray display characteristics of both humpback and roundtail chubs. From the nuchal hump <br />posterior many of these chubs resemble G. cypha: deeply embedded scaling, large falcate fins, <br />often dorsal: anal ray counts of 9:10, slender and elongate caudal peduncles. The head of these <br />"Desolation-type" chubs is more typical of G. robusta: overall blocky in appearance, head is not <br />dished out /concave, snout does not overhang the mouth, and nuchal hump is not pronounced. <br />McElroy and Douglas (1995) and. Douglas et al. (1998) contend that the chubs found in <br />Desolation Canyon can be distinguished to species based on morphological characters. <br />However, they found humpback and roundtail chubs in Desolation and Cataract canyons to be <br />xv <br />