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• <br />PART I. PROFILE OF WARMWATER ANGLERS <br />The intent of the first six questions was to get a snapshot of warmwater anglers in • <br />western Colorado and what their preferences were for warmwater fishing <br />opportunities. Previous angler harvest surveys had yielded estimates of 88,000 + <br />recreation days for warmwater fishing in general in the CDOW's Northwest and <br />Southwest regions, but gave little detail as to habitat use or species preference <br />(Colorado Division of Wildlife, 1992). The results reported here provide a more <br />detailed picture of westslope warmwater anglers than previously reported. <br />Days Fished <br />For the 300 anglers surveyed, the median number of total days fished in Colorado was <br />16.4, with roughly 50% fishing a total of 15 days per year or less (Figure 1). When <br />asked how many of those days were spent warmwater fishing, the median number <br />of days spent warmwater fishing was 4.4 days (Figure 2). <br />Figure 2 also shows the frequency of days spent warmwater fishing by 5 -day <br />segments: 1 -5 days, 6 -10 days etc.. Fifty -nine per cent of anglers indicated that <br />they fished 5 days or less in 1995; thirty -two per cent fished 6 to 25 days in 1995; • <br />and ten per cent indicated they fished 26 days or more during the year for warmwater <br />species. <br />The 1991 survey estimated that Region -wide, for the two westslope Regions, there <br />were approximately 24,000 anglers who fished an average of 3.7 days each for <br />warmwater species. No effort was made to extrapolate this estimate to all western <br />slope anglers because an effort to estimate the total number of anglers was beyond <br />the scope of this study. <br />Age and Gender of Anglers • <br />The median age of anglers in this survey was 39.5 years, with thirty -six per cent <br />being less that 34 years of age (Figure 3). The preponderance of anglers were male, <br />almost four in five, or 79% (Figure 4). <br />CI <br />Species Preference <br />Since the effort to continue to provide warmwater fishing opportunities will focus on <br />the management of, and the use of bass, bluegill and black crappie, it is important to <br />• <br />2 <br />• <br />