Massachusetts Striped Bass Research

striped bass

Massachusetts is home to one of the largest striped bass fisheries in the USA. The state's recreational striped bass fishery attracts hundreds of thousands of recreational anglers each year.

In Massachusetts, a variety of research and monitoring programs are conducted on striped bass, some of which help support the regional management process.

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) has participated in the Striped Bass Cooperative State‐Federal Coast‐wide Tagging Study since 1991.

The study's primary objective has been to develop an integrated database of tag releases and recoveries that will provide current information related to striped bass mortality and migration rates.

During 2015, Striped Bass Research Project staff conducted 14 trips aboard contracted vessels, tagging a total of 365 striped bass.

Annual post‐release survival of striped bass (28 inches and greater) tagged in Massachusetts waters has been relatively stable over the last decade, averaging 74%.

A technical report summarizing the tagging studies conducted by DMF since 1991 is available:

Nelson, G. A., J. Boardman and P. Caruso. Massachusetts striped bass tagging programs, 1991‐2014. Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries technical report TR‐61. 37 p.

For more information, visit the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries website.

source: Massachusetts Marine Fisheries 2015 Annual Report

Bluefin Tuna Tag Recoveries

Captain Al Anderson, a charter boat captain out of Point Judith, Rhode Island, participates in the NOAA Fisheries Cooperative Tagging Program. One Capt. Anderson's tagged bluefin tuna was recently recaptured after 16 years.

That bluefin weighed a mere 14 pounds when Anderson caught it in the Mudhole east/southeast of Block Island in 1997. When a Nova Scotia fisherman recaptured it late last year, it weighed more than 1,200 pounds.

Anderson started tagging 45 years ago when he was a graduate student in fisheries biology at the University of Rhode Island.

Bluefin tuna that Anderson tagged have been recaptured off the coasts of Turkey and France. Anderson once recaptured a bluefin off Rhode Island that had been tagged ten days earlier near New Orleans, at least 1,600 miles away.

Over the years, Anderson and his charter clients have tagged tens of thousands of striped bass, almost five thousand bluefin, and 1500 sharks.

NOAA provides fishermen with tags to put on fish they catch and release, including highly migratory species like tunas, sailfish, and marlin. After tagging a fish, they send the tag number to NOAA Fisheries, along with date, location, length and weight.

If the fish is recaptured, the fisherman can read the number and call it in. That allows scientists to track migration patterns and estimate growth and mortality rates for these species.

Conventional tags provide snapshots of data when the fish is tagged and again when it’s recaptured. For a more detailed picture, scientists also deploy PSATs— pop-up satellite archival tags.

Pop-up satellite archival tags provide a huge amount of data on habitat preference, movement, and diving behavior, but because they’re costly there’s only so many of them.

Conventional tags provide less data per tag, but fishermen with the Cooperative Tagging Program have put them on roughly 270,000 fish of almost 80 different species since the program began in 1954.

More Information

Fishermen and tournament operators can get free tags and tagging kits by contacting NOAA’s Cooperative Tagging Center: http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/species/fish/tagging.htm

source: NOAA Fisheries

2013 LASS Redfish Series Event 5

Sweetwater Marina in Delacroix was the venue for the fifth event of the LASS Redfish Series, sponsored by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation, Shimano and The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

74 teams registered for a chance to compete for the win in Delacroix. This is the largest and most impressive turn out for a redfish event since the inception of the Louisiana Saltwater Series in 2010. The Delacroix event also brought in 31 anglers from out-of-state including anglers from Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama..

In order to compete in the Louisiana Saltwater Series Championship teams must either have a finish in one of the qualifying events within the payout for that event or compete in at least four of the six qualifying events.

A total of 209 redfish were tagged and released by LDWF staff as part of the Louisiana Marine Sport Fish Tagging Program, where anglers become citizen scientists for the agency, collecting invaluable data.  This was a record number of Redfish topping the 202 Redfish tagged and released for the two-day LASS Redfish Championship in 2012.

The next LASS event will be a jack crevalle kayak tournament scheduled for Saturday, July 20th on the New Orleans Lakefront near The Blue Crab Restaurant.

The next LASS Redfish event will be on August 10th at The Delta Marina in Empire and the next LASS youth event will be on November 2nd at Myrtle Grove Marina.

For complete information, including rules, regulations and registration go to www.lasaltwaterseries.com

The Louisiana Saltwater Series is hosted in conjunction with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation.

source: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

Louisiana Yellowfin Tuna Tagging Program

During the fall of 2011, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) plans to launch a Yellowfin Tuna Tagging Program for the Gulf of Mexico.

The program will promote a culture of catch, tag and release in the recreational fishing community while contributing to the scientific data necessary to further understand the behaviors of yellowfin tuna.

Tagging tuna can provide information about their movements, migrations, stock structure, growth, population size, mortality, schooling behavior and physiology.

According to data from NOAA, the size and number of yellowfin caught are decreasing, and the downward trend has been happening since 1999.

"The new tuna tagging program will provide baseline information for the population models used to assess the health of the stock of this valuable fishery," said LDWF Assistant Secretary Randy Pausina.

"It will also help clarify the evidence that yellowfin migratory patterns have been altered by the presence of offshore oil platforms."

LDWF plans to kick off the program with a tag-and-release tournament at Venice Marina on Saturday, September 24.

With the success of the 2011 redfish tournaments, the department added a Yellowfin Tuna Fall Shootout to their Louisiana Saltwater Series.

By encouraging live tag and release, the series has focused attention on the conservation of our marine resources.

This is the first tournament of its kind in the Gulf of Mexico, and there is a 100 percent payout for first, second and third place finishers. Payout is determined based upon the total number of boats entered. A $5,000 prize is up for grabs to the chartered boat with the most tagged yellowfin.

There is also a kill fish division, and the team with the largest tuna weighed will win an offshore tackle package valued at $3,000.

There is a $500 entry fee per boat for the tournament, with a maximum of eight anglers total on each team.

Additional information, including rules, regulations and entry forms will soon be available at www.lasaltwaterseries.com

Rewards for Tagged Spiny Dogfish

NOAA Fisheries Service’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center has launched a cooperative initiative to tag spiny dogfish (/Squalus acanthias/) in the Gulf of Maine, Southern New England, and Georges Bank. This project is an effort to answer long-standing questions about stock structure, movement patterns, and life history of the species in order to update and improve dogfish stock assessments.

Over a two-year period, a minimum of 33,000 dogfish will be tagged during the winter and summer months from three commercial vessels. Some of fish will be double tagged for a tag retention study, and some will be injected with oxytetracycline (OTC) for an age validation study.

Standard fin tags called rototags will be used during the project and will include a toll-free number for reporting required recapture information -- tag number, fork length, date, and location. Anyone who captures a tagged fish and returns complete information can earn either a $20 cash reward for one of the 27,000 white tags or a $100 cash reward for one of the 3,000 "high reward" orange tags.

Recaptures of fish injected with OTC and fish with two tag types -- a rototag and a dart tag -- will require return of the whole fish for a $100 cash reward (3,000 green tags). Whole fish to be returned should be iced or frozen. Shipping instructions will be provided upon contact.

To report the capture of tagged spiny dogfish, call toll free (877) 826-2612, report online at www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sharktagreport, or e-mail sharkrecap@noaa.gov