Laserfiche WebLink
'~ <br />15-mile reach. Two remained in the reach throughout the estimated spawning <br />period. <br />~pawnina Activity <br />A suspected prespawning aggregation of adult Colorado squawfish was observed <br />by Fishery Project personnel at river mile 178.3 in the 15-mile reach above <br />the Gunnison River confluence in mid-July 1982. In the first observation, <br />three radio-tagged fish were tracked to one riverine pool area, and nine <br />adults at or near spawning condition were then captured there after limited <br />net sampling efforts. The aggregation occurred a few days after mean daily <br />water temperature had reached 20 'C and during a time when runoff flows were <br />dropping off sharply. A second aggregation was noted at river mile 175.3, <br />12 days after the initial observation. Drifting trammel nets through an area <br />occupied by two fish equipped with transmitters yielded an additional male <br />Colorado squawfish in spawning condition. During this same time period, an <br />adult female was captured near river mile 115 that weighed nearly 1 pound more <br />than when previously captured a month earlier, suggesting the development of <br />spawning (gravid) condition. <br />Larval Occurrence <br />Fishery Project studies included the routine sampling of the larval-fish <br />community both within and downstream of the 15-mile reach. During 5 years <br />of investigation, 70 larval squawfish were collected with fine-mesh hand <br />nets from the two Colorado River reaches in the Grand Valley immediately <br />upstream and downstream of its confluence with the Gunnison River. Although <br />the sampling effort was similar in the two river reaches, 96 percent of the <br />larval captures occurred downstream of the Gunnison River conf]uence (river <br />miles 162-164). Only two (3 percent) of the larvae were collected from the <br />upstream reach. These observations may indicate that most fish were spawned <br />in the downstream reach or that the larvae were deposited in the upstream <br />reach and drifted downstream to the area where most of the captures were <br />recorded. <br />Postlarval Youno-of-Year Occurrence <br />No postlarval young-of-year Colorado squawfish greater than 25 mm total length <br />were collected from above the Gunnison River confluence in a total of <br />57 samples collected in the fall of 1982-1986. However, a total of <br />62 Colorado squawfish were collected in an 18-mile reach below the confluence <br />of the Gunnison River (54 samples). The 1982-1984 catch rate of young-of-year <br />Colorado squawfish in the 10-mile reach immediately downstream of the <br />confluence of the Gunnison River (river miles 160-170) warranted <br />classification of this reach as a "Young-of-Year Nursery Area" by the Basin <br />Biology Subcommittee (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1984). <br />Nonsoawnino Adult Occurrence <br />Osmundson and Kaeding (1989) reported that adult Colorado squawfish catch <br />rates in the upstream 15-mile reach were twice as high as those in the <br />adjacent downstream river reach. During 1986-1989 adults were most abundant <br />