Interesting that the farther upstream you go, the less smaller fish there are even if you attempt a close approximation to normalizing the data by multiplying the upper site’s inch group by inch group data by 2.25. Do the multiplication and you’ll find that the population is much smaller, but on the other hand the large fish are much more abundant. (The upper site has a very goo number of big ST for 230 m). This lower density of most or all other length groups once data are normalized suggests that the stream is warmer farther upstream or substrate is worse or both. Another suggestion is that with the lower density of fish upstream, the potential for more larger fish is increased as long as the physical habitat and temps can support them. If the larger fish were stocked fish at the upper site, this too would make sense because they may have been stocked in somewhat marginal habitat and stayed. The numbers of other size fish at the upper site do not suggest that the site would be attractive for larger ST to move from a receiving water 2.78 mi upstream from some form of better habitat/temp to an area that appears to be worse. If the larger fish are wild, my bet, although I could lose, would be that they are residents. If this sounds like I’m equivocating, what do you want from me?🤣…..I wasn’t on the survey and I have incomplete data, such as no info on the watershed and no site physical/chemical data.
Note: If I made any glaring errors above, note that I’ll accept them since I blew through the data and thought process pretty quickly since info was limited.
