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DISCIISSION <br />Analyses of backwater habitats in the Green River at Ouray NWR, Utah ind <br />YOY Colorado squawfish show a preference for large, deep backwaters. 8ackwate <br />Colorado squawfish had mean length 1.8 times that of unused backwaters. Likew <br />width was 1.7 times greater and mean volume 2.2 times greater. Backwater size <br />obvious first line criteria for establishing minimum backwater selection chara <br />YOY Colorado squawfish monitoring. ISMP researchers, based on previous field <br />established a protocol calling for sampling backwaters with minimum surface ar <br />minimum depth of 0.3 m (USFWS 1987). This depth figure is nearly identical to <br />value (0.33 m) seen at Ouray NWR. Although the minimum surface area value in <br />is much lower than the mean for Colorado squawfish backwaters at Ouray NWR (99 <br />Colorado squawfish were caught in backwaters as small as 19 m2 during this stu <br />Similar surface area and depth observations have been made by other rese <br />Grabowski and Hiebert (1989) had previously indicated they had found Colorado <br />primarily in backwaters at Ouray NWR less than 0.3 m deep with wide connection <br />Backwaters used by Colorado squawfish in this study were wider at the mouth th <br />backwaters. However, the mean of depth measurements in Colorado squawfish ba <br />reported here (0.33 m) is greater than observed by these researchers. This di <br />related to sampling protocol and between year variation. In spite of the 0.33 <br />measure, however, Colorado squawfish in this study were caught in backwaters <br />0.04 m. On the other hand, observations by Haines and Tyus (1990) and Tyus an <br />