Steve Crawford

In an effort to evaluate the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)'s long-term fisheries monitoring program for inland water bodies, we conducted a power analysis utilizing fish data from electrofishing, mini-fyke net, and gill net samples. We resampled data and simulated the effects of different combinations of gear and sample size for collecting presence - absence information. Our objective was to determine whether the use of either mini-fyke nets or gill nets could be eliminated or reduced in the monitoring program. Thirty fyke net/gill net gear combinations were...

Daily angler logs were used to obtain lengths of 696 angler-caught largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) during January-May 1993 from Farm 13 Reservoir, Florida (2,600 ha), where a no-harvest rule was in effect. Sixty-three percent of these fish were caught by 2 fishing guides (and their clients) and 37% were caught by 19 other parties of anglers that fished without a guide. Angler-caught largemouth bass ranged from 254 to 648 mm total length (TL) with modal peaks at 381- and 457-mm length groups. By extrapolating angler log data into the catch estimate from an ongoing creel survey, we...

Angler exploitation of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) on the Conway and Winter Park chains of lakes, was evaluated using reward tags. An estimated 57% and 56% of the largemouth bass in the Conway and Winter Park chains, respectively, were caught by anglers during a 1-year period from 1991 to 1992. Annual exploitation rates were adjusted for tagging mortality and tag loss by 13% and 50%, respectively, for small Hallprint dart tags and 18% and 7%, respectively, for large Hallprint dart tags. Angler non-reporting of tagged fish was assigned a value of 20% based on a previous study....

Otoliths from 822 trophy (>4.5 kg) largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) caught by anglers in Florida were obtained from taxidermists during 1987-1993. The fish were harvested from 211 different water bodies. Longevity and mean growth exceeded those reported previously in Florida. Mean age of trophy largemouth bass statewide was 9.7 years and ranged from 4.0 to 16.5 years. Mean growth averaged 0.54 kg/year with a range of 0.28-1.27 kg/year. Growth rate of trophy largemouth bass increased from north to south Florida. Accelerated growth, longevity and strong year classes were important...