Graves et al.: Use of archival tags to study postrelease survival of and habitat use by estuarine and coastal fishes 
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Figure 2 
Depth (left axis, open black symbols) and temperature (right axis, closed grey symbols) time series from 
Microwave Telemetry X-tags deployed on eight large coastal migrant striped bass ( Morone saxatilis) 
from January through March 2008. Tags for fish 2, 4, and 8 were recovered and represent the full 100% 
downloaded data streams. 
lease. Each fish exhibited multiple vertical move- 
ments in the water column throughout the 30-day 
tagging period (Fig. 2). Inferences of survival based 
on depth and temperature data were also support- 
ed by calculations of net movement (Graves et al., 
2002). Minimum straight line displacements for the 
eight striped bass ranged from 12.6 to 58.6 nautical 
miles (nmi; 23.3-108.5 km), with a mean of 34.9 nmi 
(64.6 km; Fig 3). During the 30-day tagging period, 
three individuals (fish 2, 4, and 5) left coastal waters 
and entered Chesapeake Bay, presumably initiating 
spawning migration. 
Depth and temperature data archived by the eight 
transmitting X-tags demonstrated that coastal migrant 
striped bass spent >90% of their time in the upper 10 
m of the water column in temperatures of 6-9°C (Fig 
4). Two striped bass (fish 2 and 5) entered warm tem- 
peratures (~15°C) at approximately the same time on 
the same date. These individuals, tagged on different 
days in North Carolina waters, may have moved east- 
ward to a warm core eddy confirmed by satellite tem- 
perature imagery for 7 February 2008 (http://marine. 
rutgers.edu/cool/sat_data, accessed May 2008). It is 
also possible that these fish instead moved into shallow 
