Figure 2. Growth in fork length (FL) and body weight (Weight) during rearing of 2002 and 2003 broodyear juveniles from the High and Low growth treatment groups.


The body size of High and Low hatchery treatment groups differed significantly at the time of juvenile release, but after approximately18 months of post-release ocean growth the body size of age 4 High and Low growth treatment groups were not significantly different. Thus, the differences in size-at-release did not translate into comparable size differences in adult returns.
We found that by the time age 4 adults returns from BY 2002 arrived at RAMF the Low and High growth treatment differences in juvenile length- and weight-at-release shown in Figure 2 no longer exist (Table 5). In no case was there a significant Treatment or Acclimation site effect, nor were there significant interactions. Knudsen et al. (2006) found that age 3 returns from BY2002 also demonstrated no significant Treatment effect, but did find significant Treatment effects in age 2 returns from both BY2002 and 2003. Age 2 precocious males were sampled approximately 6 to 8 months after release