It’s no secret that The Fisherman Magazine is big on tagging. For years now we’ve been partnered up with Gray Fishtag Research, deploying satellite tags in striped bass throughout the region, hoping that the data that we get back helps us learn more about the migration patterns of these fish. Some of the findings that have been discovered are truly amazing. You can read all about the entire study by visiting https://www.thefisherman.com/category/striped-bass-study/ and scrolling through the archives. One of our most recent tagging trips was based out of the NJ/NY Bight area and the weather conditions were terrible at best, making for a good story and trip. Take a look at that most recent article for the details on how that trip went down.
While we’ve done some extensive tagging with striped bass, this editorial covers tagging fluke, and not with The Fisherman and not even with Gray Fishtag Research but the American Littoral Society – another prominent tagging group. It’s actually more of a very interesting and otherwise “hitting the lotto” return from a Fisherman Magazine subscriber who shared the story with me recently.
While out fishing the Rockaway Inlet area on June 28th, subscriber Stuart Fries took his first boat trip of the year with his wife. During his fluke trip he caught, tagged and released six fluke but one of them already had a tag planted in it, which he tagged again and sent on its way with two tags in it now, after recording the previous tag number as well. Stu let me know he keeps meticulous records of his fish tagging and upon further investigation, when he returned home, he realized that the fish he tagged with a second tag was a fish that he tagged previously in the past! Now here’s the real kicker; Stu tagged this exact fish, on the exact day as last year and in the exact same place! Talk about a repeat customer! Of course, he shared the record with me which does, in fact, confirm that it was the exact same fish that received both tags.
So while it has not been studied in great detail, we can probably make some sort of assumption that fluke, to a degree do return to previous areas every season. Are we catching the same fluke year after year and not realizing it? We just might be. If could also be why some heavily pressured areas have tapered off with action after some time before the populations can replenish themselves.
The same goes for tautog, as proven by several acoustic tagging studies that have been conducted in the past. Many tog return to the same reefs year after year and it’s well documented that they do so. We ran an article about the study done by Stony Brook students last year in the April issue of the magazine. You can check that story out by visiting https://www.thefisherman.com/article/acoustic-tagging-tog/.
So are fish more predictable than we think? That just might be the case. Of course, more research can always be done to get a better grasp on these concepts and I’m confident that in the future we will learn much more about all of these species.
To learn more about The Fisherman’s satellite tagging study visit https://www.thefisherman.com/category/striped-bass-study/
