and only one was collected upstream from Intake diversion (river km 

 145) . The largest number of sauger collected from one backwater 

 was 18. This was a long narrow side channel with a small current 

 and many pools, located adjacent to Seven Sister's Island (river km 

 67.9). The lengths of young-of-year sauger ranged from 138-199 mm. 

 The two sauger collected furthest upstream were two of the larger 

 specimens captured, 181 and 192 mm, respectively. 



The fact that: 1) no young-of-year sauger were captured 

 upstream from Glendive (river km 145) and 2) most young-of-year 

 were collected from the lower reaches of the Yellowstone River 

 (river km 70) suggests that the river current washes sauger larvae 

 many miles downstream after hatching. Most larvae probably drift 

 to areas near the mouth of the Yellowstone or even into the 

 Missouri River (Garrison Reservoir) . Nelson (1968a) observed that 

 larvae which hatched in the Missouri River below Fort Randall Dam 

 drifted over 70 km into Lewis and Clark Reservoir. Priegel (1970) 

 discovered a large spawning marsh 156 km upstream from Lake 

 Winnebago on the Wolf River and documented downstream movement of 

 fry, probably into Lake Winnebago. 



Behavior patterns of sauger larvae make them very susceptible 

 to long distance drift. Priegel (1970) observed that walleye fry 

 began vertical swimming movement from the time of hatching until 

 developing fins allowed horizontal movement at age 10 days. Fry 

 would sink in the water column and then with vigorous motion of the 

 tail swim to the surface. Priegal found walleye fry drifting in 

 the swiftest portion of the Wolf River (near mid-river in the upper 



55 



