Fish Tags

[VeeM]

Could someone please explain to me what these mackerel tags are about. My best friend is on a fishing boat in Alaska and he sent me an email and he was obviously excited because he had got a tag. Now I have never heard of tagged fish till today. I'm a pleasure fisher I love to go fishing with my dad when I go up to his house thats our thing; but I have never heard of tagging fish what is this about and why was my friend excited about it.
thank you for your time
Vee

 

[The Great Wallsendo]

Hallo Mate

Welcome to NESA...see below for at least part explanation

www.defra.gov.uk/fish/science/pdf/fish-research72006-7.pdf

It's all to do with conservation - not just in this country but all over the world

 

[willywetegg]

Welcome to NESA VeeM.

Jim.

 

[davem2005]

Many organisations run tagging schemes.

I am involed with two..the shark tagging programme run by the shark trust and funded by the WWF and the skate tagging programme run by the glasgow museum.

It invoves catching a fish and measuring or weighing it...recording the details and sending them to the relevant collecting point for the data. Then hopefully if the fish is recaptured the captor will send his data in...weight and where...it all helps to provide information on movements and growth rates of fish.

Your mate may be so pleased cos the organisation often compensate the captor for taking the time to provide the details...but rarely in the case of non government schemes.

I will post pics of the tags and them in use tomorrow when sober

Maybe give you an idea of the kind of thing to look for ...but tey are hard to miss.

Cheers
Dave.

Jim...may be best to move this from reports forum .

 

[codseeker]

looking forward to the pic example mate ,good work

 

[willywetegg]

Moved it into here Dave, I will stick it for a while too mate.

Jim.

 

[BriH]

Could someone please explain to me what these mackerel tags are about. My best friend is on a fishing boat in Alaska and he sent me an email and he was obviously excited because he had got a tag.

Not one to Wee on anyones Bonty - but if the fish was handled ,surely a dead fish now ,so no more data - and why would you tag a mackeral - saying as that Video clip on that factory ship sucking the sea dry of mackeral - i cant see how a tag is going to return anything

 

[KeithB]

Welcome to NESA VeeM.

As you say your friend is fishing in Alaska, could you be talking about a different mackeral from the ones we catch here in the UK?

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/quarterly/ond2006/divrptsREFM9.htm

 

[BriH]

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/species/Atka_mackerel.php



Nowt like what we call a mackeral


Good post keith - quick and up to date as usual

 

[codhw]

BRiH why do you say if the fish was handled it would have died?

 

[alan]

Welcome to NESA Vee
Its been mentioned a few times on this forum about whether Mackerel Die once touched by human hands
Heres a link where Leon Roskilly answers the same question
http://www.sacn.org.uk/Articles/Releasing_Mackerel.html

 

[davem2005]

Finally got a picture sorted to add to this.

I use both the shark tagging and skate tagging tags.

They look like this.

The writing has details of who to contact and the all too small to read tag number.

Sharks are tagged just below the dorsal fin. Skate are tagged on the outer part of the wing.

Here is a picture of a tag going in.

The details of caught fish such as location, size,sex, depth and condition of the fish are recorded. Weihts are arrived at by measuring the length and width (and in the case of sharks its length and girth behind the dorsal fin)

More details of the shark tagging program are here
http://www.ukshark.co.uk/

The species that are tagged are as follows:
Tope
Starry Smooth hound
Common Smoothhound
Thresher Shark
Porbeagles
Short Fin Mako's
Angel Shark (Monkfish)
Smooth hammerhead
Blue Shark
Common Skate
And laterly the thornbacks as reffered to in an earlier post.

Finally WHAT TO DO IF YOU CATCH A TAGGED FISH.

DONT KILL IT AND DONT REMOVE THE TAG.

Note the number of the tag and the contact details will be on it.
Measure or weigh the fish.
Photograph the fish and put it back.

Of the 40 plus fish I have tagged something like 8 have been recaught and its nice to know they have given someone else some pleasure. I have also caught approx 12 fish that have been caught before.

In the case of tope its amazing just how far they can travel. fish tagged near the Isle of Whyte have been caught by japanese longliners several thousand miles away.

Cheers
dave

 

[BriH]

BRiH why do you say if the fish was handled it would have died?

Because if you handle mackeral (our Mackeral ,Shields pier ,Blyth Etc Etc) and then put them back to fight another day ,they just die anyway ,so when i read about tagging them ,didnt see much point ,saying as once you had handled them to tag ,then put them back with said tag ,they would die ,so no further data

but it isnt the same fish - same name different species