Center Console Angler Magazine: From the Console

Discover Tagging

During a recent conversation with a friend, I discovered that he has never tagged a fish. I consider him to be a serious billfish angler, so his comments came as a surprise.

“Tagging does more harm than good,” he said, “because it leads the Japanese longliners right to the fish.” He said this with a straight face and a little impatience, as if I should have already been aware of this obvious fact.

I laughed out loud at the idea of the Japanese fleet poring over tag return data, trying to figure out where they should set their gear. I had long thought that this inane concept had gone the way of the flat Earth theory, but apparently not. By now, everyone should know that fish tagging provides immensely valuable data to fishery managers and scientists, and they should further understand that the huge longline fleets of the world have the best fish intelligence in existence and therefore have little to learn from tag returns.

The data from tagging yields insight into fish migration patterns and growth rates, and provides an indicator of relative abundance of a particular species—if the percentage of returned tags rises substantially over time, that’s an indication that the stock of a particular species is declining, since the number of tagged fish would represent a higher percentage of the overall stock of that species.

Satellite tagging transmits data from a tagged fish back to scientists via satellite telemetry, but satellite tags represent a small portion of the tagging effort. Most tagging involves the use of lowtech dart tags that have been around in one form or another for decades.

Tagging makes you an active participant in the worldwide effort to learn more about the fish of the world and in the ongoing movement to save them from the numerous threats they face. It’s also fun, both in the initial tagging process and when someone else recaptures a fish you’ve tagged.

You can participate in tagging in a couple of ways: first, you can learn proper tagging and release procedures and begin actively tagging fish yourself, and you can also be on the lookout for a tagged fish that you may recapture while you’re fishing. Learn the correct method for removing the tag and contacting the institution that provided it so scientists can record and interpret the data. Without returns, tagging is worthless.

It’s important to realize that tagging programs cover much more than billfish, too. They exist for a great many species, so don’t think that just because you don’t chase blue marlin each weekend, tagging isn’t for you. Do some homework and you’ll find out just how many species fall under a tagging program.

So if you haven’t tried tagging before, give it a shot. You’ll be amazed at how much fun it is, and it gives you a goal above and beyond fishing itself, plus you’ll be doing something of great importance—the more we know about fish, the better our chance of making sure our grandchildren have access to great fishing in the future. And the next time someone tells you how tagging leads longliners to the fish, tell him not to venture too far offshore on his next fishing trip—he might just fall off the end of the Earth.

Learn more about tagging at:
The American Littoral Society- www.littoralsociety.org
The Billfish Foundation- www.billfish.org
Mote Marine Laboratory- www.mote.org

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