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impeded by turbid water, if there is a choice to be made. We speculate that high turbid-water - <br />catch rates may be due to greater susceptibility overall and higher abundance of fish in shallow <br />riffles. Clear and shallow riffles sometimes support few fish, perhaps because fish lack the cover <br />needed to occupy such places or because they detect the approaching raft and retreat to other <br />habitats. Speas et al. (2004) found that capture rates of rainbow trout increased in turbid <br />compared to clear water and attributed the increase to inability of fish to see the approaching <br />boat, and possibly, reduced ability to escape due to low water temperatures. Channel catfish <br />capture rates were slightly lower in turbid than clear water. This is reasonable because many <br />channel catfish never undergo taxis to the raft anode where they are visible and available for <br />capture. Instead, channel catfish are often stunned directly over the substrate and roll along the <br />bottom in the current, such that their capture would be less likely in turbid than in clear water. <br />Although fish capture rates were affected by a number of factors including turbidity and <br />sampling season, we could not attribute any differences to factors that existed solely in one or <br />the other periods, 1994 to 1996 or 2002 to 2004. In the absence of artifacts caused by <br />environmental conditions or differences in sampling efficiency, we consider reductions in <br />capture rates in the recent period as unbiased and reflect real reductions in native fish abundance. <br />Effects of reach, season, and year, on fish density, 2002 to 2004 seine samples.-Seine <br />samples showed significant differences in abundance of all taxa captured among years, seasons, <br />and reaches and all first order interactions among those effects were also significant. Across all <br />years from 2002 to 2004, average abundance of each fish taxa in seine samples was lowest in <br />Browns Park (mean = 1.15 fish/lOm2, 95% CL = 0.805 to 1.50) and the Lodore Canyon reaches <br />LD1 and LD2 (LD1 mean = 0.95 fish/1Om2, 95% CL = 0.61 to 1.30; LD2 mean = 0.71 fish/ IOM2, <br />95% CL = 0.42 to 1.30), slightly higher in LD3 and LD4 (LD3 mean = 1.49 fish/I Om', 95% CL <br />= 1.02 to 1.97; LD4 mean = 1.36 fish/lOm2, 95% CL = 0.88 to 1.84), increased substantially in <br />Whirlpool Canyon (W1I 1 mean = 4.14 fish/1Om2, 95% CL = 3.04 to 5.23; WH2 mean = 3.13 <br />fish/ IOm', 95% CL = 2.17 to 4.10), and then declined in Island-Rainbow Park (IRP mean = 1.44 <br />fish/1 Om2, 95% CL = 1.09 to 1.78. The GLM analysis of abundance as a function of reaches was <br />significant (x2 = 91.69, 7 df, p < 0.0001). <br />40