Recycling the Resource: Tag Return

[SAUERKRAUT]

May 12th, I caught this 31" striper which was tagged about 38 months prior in Delaware Bay. Not too shabby: 8 to 9" growth in three years. I scored this free hat. I didn't kill the fish or remove the tag. So, it is still swimming around, recording data so to speak.

I'm glad I was alone so nobody could witness the shennanagans I went through in the pre dawn dark. The tag was covered in weed. I'm scraping off the tag by flashlight, squinting with my old eyes at the microscopic writing on the spaghetti tag at the six digit tag number, and the reporting address with the five digit zip code. Now, my aging memory is so bad that I am writing all of this stuff in the sand above the high tide line so I don't forget it. By the time I finished the fishing there, I had the info sufficiently memorized; but I had to return to the sand writing three times to be sure of it.

[numbskull]

Too bad they sent you a hat. A diaper would have been more useful.

[JohnR]

How did you write in the sand? I find cursive is much easier in that regard.

Nice tag find & release btw!

[Tagger]

funny .. I've tagged a lot of fish but have never caught a tagged fish .. Only one of my tags have been retired . They say less than 1% are recovered .. Nice work Alan .

[SAUERKRAUT]

Originally Posted by Tagger

funny .. I've tagged a lot of fish but have never caught a tagged fish .. Only one of my tags have been retired . They say less than 1% are recovered .. Nice work Alan .

Thanks Tagger. I stick about 20 tags a year myself aand I haven't had a return in several years. I use the ALS spaghetti tags. I confine my tagging to the extremes of the season when the water is cold, and the fish can cope with out of water handling time better. I also tend to tag the larger fish, and only fish that are single hooked, and landed in a place that I can easily handle them (preferably on a big blob of seaweed or a low tide tide pool. And always when I am solo or at least not around Numbskull, who ridicules me awfully when I go through these shannanagans,

[Tagger]

Originally Posted by SAUERKRAUT

Thanks Tagger. I stick about 20 tags a year myself aand I haven't had a return in several years. I use the ALS spaghetti tags. I confine my tagging to the extremes of the season when the water is cold, and the fish can cope with out of water handling time better. I also tend to tag the larger fish, and only fish that are single hooked, and landed in a place that I can easily handle them (preferably on a big blob of seaweed or a low tide tide pool. And always when I am solo or at least not around Numbskull, who ridicules me awfully when I go through these shannanagans,

Yes ,, I use to tag in only one place where the fish were decent size and the water fairly calm . I tagged them right in the water . You know when they are really done and kind of turn on their side for you anyway . I was measuring ,, not weighing ..The only fish I had retired was caught 11 miles away 4 days later .

[Sea Dangles]

Do they have cursive numbers that nobody told me about?

Alan, have you been in the productive area?

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Do they have cursive numbers that nobody told me about?

Alan, have you been in the productive area?

[Tagger]

Hey Alan ... I've started taking pictures of things I need to remember.. Even pricing something in different stores and comparing pics of prices ,model numbers ect. at home . My phone takes good pics and can enlarge the image . or do it the caveman way .. ;-)