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Tagged fish
So, as I mentioned in Got Stripers thread, my wife, daughter and I took the boat out saturday afternoon. We had some fun with some schoolies, etc.
My wife caught a 20-22" fish and while I'm landing it, I see this yellow something on it. It lookes like a piece of fishing net or something. I get the fish in and its a tag covered with seaweed.
At first I was like, "cool"... I had never caught a tagged fish before. I guess I still haven't, but my wife has. Anyways, this thing was threaded thru the fish about 5" up from its tail, about 2" down from its backbone. It was essentially, a rubber tie as it went thru the fish and was tied in a loop. It was about the diameter of fly line.
The hole was all red, sore and raw. And the fish had sores where the tag and accompanying seaweed had been laying on his back.
I don't know anything about tagging, except the obvious, that its a way to track the fish, etc, etc. But while this fish had made it up from NJ and seemed healthy, was definitely feeding and was very strong... this couldn't have been good for the fish, certainly for the long haul. It looked pretty darn bad. I'm very glad we were able to remove the thing and hope he appreciated this and will pay me a visit in a few years.
Is this someone who just didn't know what they were doing... I know anyone can get tagging equipment... or is this just kinda the deal when punching a whole in a fish in the name of scientific research? I guess I figured the tags would be a little easier on the fish.
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