Due to time and resource limitations, the growth of many fish species is evaluated with age and length data in a length‐stratified subsample of a sample from a population. Some fisheries professionals draw inferences about growth using age and length data from only those fish that were actually aged (aged‐only method). Alternatively, growth may be evaluated by employing a method of incorporating the length‐stratified aged subsample with information from the entire sample of fish collected, such as the weighted‐mean and assigned‐age methods, which are commonly used in inland fisheries management. More recently, two prominent alternatives to those methods have emerged: the reweighting and empirical proportion methods. In this study, we used observed data from three freshwater fish species with different life history traits (short‐ to long‐lived) to inform a simulation model comparing estimated von Bertalanffy growth model parameters and predicted mean lengths at age calculated using the five aforementioned methods across a range of sample sizes per length‐group and a range of CVs. As expected, our results demonstrated that the aged‐only method is unreliable and biased when estimating von Bertalanffy parameters and mean lengths at age. The weighted‐mean method performed better than the aged‐only method but was not among the top‐performing methods. The assigned‐age, reweighting, and empirical proportion methods all performed well and produced similar estimates, although the empirical proportion method generally resulted in slightly more precise and less biased estimates. We recommend that fisheries professionals discontinue their use of the aged‐only and weighted‐mean methods and instead use the assigned‐age, reweighting, or empirical proportion method.

No abstract

No abstract

Management agencies throughout the southern United States widely stock Florida Bass (FLB) Micropterus floridanus into extant Largemouth Bass (LMB) M. salmoides populations, with the intent of increasing the trophy potential of those water bodies. These stockings commonly lead to a shift in the systemwide genetic composition toward a population dominated by hybrids, which are predominantly LMB with low levels of FLB alleles (FX‐LMB). Despite the increasing prevalence of FX‐LMB throughout the Southeast, little work has examined FX‐LMB population vital rates and whether these hybrids increase the trophy potential of a water body. Our study fills a void in existing research by comparing the population characteristics of FX‐LMB and LMB using a common garden experimental design. Lake Ouachita is a large Arkansas reservoir that was stocked with over 800,000 fingerling FLB between 2007 and 2015. In 2019, we collected 1,000 bass from throughout the reservoir and determined the level of FLB introgression for each fish by using a panel of species‐diagnostic single‐nucleotide polymorphisms. We then tested for relationships between the percentage of FLB alleles or genotype and the age at 50% maturity, total annual mortality rate, size structure, condition, and growth. In addition, we compared tournament catches of large bass during the pre‐ and poststocking time periods to test whether catch rates of 2.3‐kg and larger bass increased after FLB stockings. Our results indicated that FX‐LMB hybrids likely do not mature earlier, survive longer, have better body condition, or have greater growth potential than native LMB in Lake Ouachita. We also did not observe differences in the number of hours to catch a 2.3‐kg or larger bass or in the number of 2.3‐kg and larger bass captured per tournament between the pre‐ and poststocking time periods. We conclude that a stocking program resulting in a subtle shift in the genetic composition toward the FX‐LMB genotype will not effectively increase the trophy potential of a population.