Validity of the Scale Method for Aging Hatchery-Reared Atlantic Salmon
- 1 July 1959
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
- Vol. 88 (3) , 193-196
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1959)88[193:votsmf]2.0.co;2
Abstract
Scale samples from 142 hatchery‐reared lake Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, of known age were studied to determine degree of correlation between known age and age as determined by scale interpretation. Salmon sampled had been marked by finclips before stocking and had been at large for 1 to 5 years. They were survivors of three successive stockings of 16‐month‐old (from hatching), fall‐stocked fish. All scales were taken from angled salmon checked during a continuing creel census at Long Pond, Hancock County, Maine. Approximately 80 percent of the 142 fish could be correctly aged by employing usual criteria for annulus location. Winter band counts were the best single criterion for aging after Age I. All ages could be determined within 1 year. The patterns of scale growth that occurred under hatchery conditions were usually more irregular than patterns formed under lake conditions. These irregularities led to most errors in age determination. Scale absorbtion associated with reproduction was not a source of error in aging. However, only 10 scales showed spawning marks, and no scales were examined that indicated more than one spawning. Slow growing fish were as readily aged as rapidly growing individuals.This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: