Tagging & Releasing, Agree or Disagree...? Options

[Stickman]

Whats your opinion...? Agree or Disagree.

I found a good article how to tag.


How-to-tag

Whenever a human hand comes into contact with a fish, the experience is extremely traumatic to the fish, to say the least. A fish is exhausted by the time it is landed, and, if its chances of survival depend on how quickly it returned to the water and revived. Always fish with barbless hooks, and when tagging, be very prepared for the process before you catch a fish.

The object of tagging is to have one's tagged fish returned, and the prerequisite for a returned tag is a healthy fish! Fish are protected by a thin coat of slime that is a barrier against parasites and infection. If that barrier is broken or disturbed, the fish will suffer. The best way to minimize contact with a fish is to grasp it by the lower lip (not recommended with bluefish or other toothy species!) and at the base of the tail. Don't try to cradle the fish around its midsection.

The ALS has lots of tips for successful tagging. Here is a simple step-by-step guide.

First, prepare for tagging by sorting through the tagging cards and making sure the right tags are assigned to their appropriate return cards. I tie each tag through the card using the handy hole punched in a silhouette of a fish printed on the information side, a loose overhand knot does the jog. I store the cards in a Zip-loc.

Make sure the tagging needle is sharp. Use a hook hone to keep it razor sharp. Protect it and yourself in between fish by sticking it into a wine cork or the barrel of an old Bic pen.

Load the needle by sliding one end of the tag inside the flat end. It'll slide in about three inches. Set the loaded needle up near a spot where you have laid out a measuring tape (plastic dress making tape), and a wet towel. I disinfect the needle down with some Betadine, which you can get in little foil packets at any drug store.

When the fish is caught, unhook it, lay it on its side, cover its head with the hem of the towel, and working quickly, but carefully, insert the tag behind the dorsal fin. Don't punch through a scale, but lift one, about a half inch in from the edge of the fish, and firmly slide the needle through.


Pull the needle all the way through. Don't over-handle the fish!


Remove the needle


Tie the tag into a loose knot...


...and release!

Be sure that the end of the tag is all the through the back of the fish before releasing it from the needle. Stick the needle back in its cork or holder and finish the job by tying the ends of the tag together in an overhand knot, taking care to leave about an inch of slack in the loop to accommodate the fish's growth. Too tight a tag will constrict the fish. When tagging stripers, keep an eye on the spines in its dorsal. They can ruin your day. With bluefish, an assistant is always appreciated to hold the snapping jaws away from your fingers.
Measure the fish, and get it back to the water as soon as possible. No more than 15 seconds should have elapsed at this point, but don't heave the fish back, take the time to revive it by holding it by the lower jaw (not a method recommended for bluefish) and pushing it back and forth to get water flowing through its gills. When the fish kicks it is ready to be released.

Dry off your hands and take the time to fill out the tag report card. Load the needle with another tag and get back to fishing!

While stripers are the most tagged species, bluefish are also a good candidate. Some taggers have reported the tags on freshly tagged blues being attacked by other fish! Frankly the fish are so ferocious, you may want to reconsider tagging them at first until you have learned the process on a schoolie.

If you plan on tagging a lot, you may want to build a tagging board out of a piece of plywood with a wooden yardstick screwed into it for convenient measuring, and a holder for the tagging needle.

Tagging is a very fulfilling addition to fishing. Get involved and wait for that first issue of the Underwater Naturalist to arrive with a report of your first returned fish.---------------------

[Stickman]

The Link below is a very good read.

http://tagagiant.blogspot.com.au/

[Spudly]

Would the tag get caught in my teeth when i eat the fish?

[nimrod]

Never tagged a fish in my life, and wouldn't know how to mount the tag in the pole.
When tagging first was introduced, I was just a young keen fisho and most of my fishnin was bottom bashing for a feed.
When I started fishing for the big ones there were no GPS's although I did have a flasher sounder, ( still got it, an old/ancient Feruno, thing would probably still work ) anyhow back then all the keen young club guys would get their load of tags and go out and throw them into anything they caught, probably 90 percent of early tags were wasted.
When tagging got into full swing, i found out the pro's got the first hand information somehow, and that didn't sit well with me to start with.
not only that but a guy would bring a 5foot striped marlin alongside the boat and call it for 7 ft and 200 lbs, six months or so later same fish caught and weighed reaching scales at 75 lbs ( just a example ) so tagged fish were mostly being over estimated because it looked good to their mates that they caught a much larger fish than it actually was, same thing still happens today.
The other reason I won't tag a fish is club members would fish a comp and throw tags overboard and claimed they tagged 22 kingfish 2 makos and a 70 kg yellowfin.
While I look after the fish I catch as well as I can, there is no way I will treat them like some suposidly fisho's treat them, in fact I am probably pretty rough and uncaring with then compared with those who don't touch them for fear of burning a scale or two.
I release most of my freshwater species and I wet my hands or use a wet rag to handle them but that's about as far as it goes.

Here is taking humane ways to the rediculus . Did any of you blokes know that when you go prawning you must humanly kill every single prawn by piercing their brain with a needle or such implement, yes every individual prawn must be killed this way by law.

[Jumpus GooDarus]

Whenever a human hand comes into contact with a fish, the experience is extremely traumatic to the fish,

And how do you think would feel a needle jabbed into it ?????????

[Spudly]

Sure its law for the public Frank? Thought an option was to put them to sleep in the freezer first.

These might be laws for commercial users but not general public? Id like to see it if it is a law

[nimrod]

Snap freezing would be the most humane way to kill them and yes commersial operators do it this way but for the average rec fisho, it takes too long to kill a prawn if simply put into a ice slurry.
The prawn tensions up and they become less tender and all their mussels tense up.
Personally when I do prawning I take along fresh water and as soon as I catch the prawns I throw them in fresh water, this makes them spew up all the sand in their stomock and when cooked you don't get any sandy gritty taste, just beautiful prawn meat.

Do you have a snap freezer on your boat for killing prawns ?.

[Stickman]

And how do you think would feel a needle jabbed into it ?????????

Here is a comment from Tsurusaki san of FCL LABO.


Many tagged fish in Japan have died because of disease caused by tagging and they don't do tagging anymore.

[Spudly]

Nope, when we prawn we walk along the flats these days in the basin. home is only 10 mins away

[nimrod]

So how do you kill your prawns ( now I am not for one minute have a go at you ) I bet you just put them in a bucket layer upon layer upon layer and let them just die off through lack of oxygen or the weight of all the other prawns on top of them, just like probably about 99.8 percent of fishos, IF they were honest with themselves.
Same goes with fish, I always try and have a cold slurry of water to put and keep them in but sometimes I don't have ice so just spike then in the head and throw them on top of each other, sometimes ( shame of it all ) i forget the spike and just pile them on top of one another.

In this day and age I would be frowned upon for doing such a inhumane act on a living creature, but be honest, we all do it.

[Jumpus GooDarus]

So how do you kill your prawns

With the aid of a prawn killer
The Pez 1000 is top of the line model wun look @ pez & the prawns kark it quick smart

[Spudly]

Fish dont feel pain..

Crustations do apparently..


Yep, my prawns go in a bucket, then straight in the hot water.

Ill admit it, im not one of them greeny types.. I think people have gotten to soft

[Fed]

Here is taking humane ways to the rediculus . Did any of you blokes know that when you go prawning you must humanly kill every single prawn by piercing their brain with a needle or such implement, yes every individual prawn must be killed this way by law.

I bet that gives the guys on prawn trawlers the shits, no wonder they're so expensive.

[nimrod]

Fed. The pros have snap freezers which is also a humane way of killing them.
Rec fisho's don't normally have access to such machines so the authorities a few years ago bought this rediculous rule in.
Don't think anyone would obey it.

But this is dragging the topic a bit off topic.

This post has been edited by nimrod: Jan 22 2013, 05:59 PM

[kkw]

Had a search on the 'net but could not find a single reference to the requirement of killing a caught prawn. It may be one of those stories that someone heard from a friend who heard it from a friend of a friend who got it from that friends, friends, friends friend. Convince me Frank, with a reference from DPI or Fisheries or where ever I want to tag some non pelagic fish but there doesn't appear to be a programme to do that. Is it illegal to catch a live prawn (or nipper) and stick a hook up its drainage hole and cast it out? Seems that the kill law would prevent anyone using a live prawn as bait. Doesn't ring true to me.

[nimrod]

Possibly right KKW, maybe they tried to introduce it and realised how stupid it was and scrapped the idea.

I remember it because it was on 2ky's high tide and one of the guest speakers one morning was a rep from fisheries who was talking about it.
High tide took a servey to find out if the general fishing public would stand by the ruling, general consences was NO WAY, so perhaps the idea may have been scrapped.

[Jumpus GooDarus]

Had a search on the 'net but could not find a single reference to the requirement of killing a caught prawn. It may be one of those stories that someone heard from a friend who heard it from a friend of a friend who got it from that friends, friends, friends friend. Convince me Frank, with a reference from DPI or Fisheries or where ever I want to tag some non pelagic fish but there doesn't appear to be a programme to do that. Is it illegal to catch a live prawn (or nipper) and stick a hook up its drainage hole and cast it out? Seems that the kill law would prevent anyone using a live prawn as bait. Doesn't ring true to me.

Dont think there is a law in fact i'm certain of it
Prawns taste pretty shite these days when buying from shop that could be of one law change that i'm aware of
They banned the cooking of prawns on the trawlers