Tagging Bass And Other Fish

[5 Dollar Fishing Game]

I see mention of this often on this site. Why and where is it done?

[buzzed bait]

marine biology

[5 Dollar Fishing Game]

Cool beans. I wonder if they can track the age of fish that way to some extent?

[buzzed bait]

they can track age and many other variables

[fishballer06]

Yup. They can do it with the scales (actual fish scales, not the weight measurer).

[Goose52]

Tagging fish can be done for a number of reasons but is probably most often used as a tool that can be used to measure/monitor the health of the fishery. On initial tagging, the fish is measured for length, it might be weighed, it's tagged, and then released. On subsequent re-captures of the tagged fish the same data points are recorded and compared to previous measurements, thus providing information about the growth rate of the fish, and in turn providing a measure of the health of the fishery. For water that is actively managed, this data might lead to fishery alterations/improvements like addition of habitat/structure, aquatic vegetation alterations, addition of forage fish, improvements in cover to protect breeding forage fish, etc., etc.

A coincidence that this thread was started as just yesterday I tagged my first fish. The "aquatic consultant" that manages my local lakes asked me to volunteer to tag and recapture fish over the next several years. I have an initial quota to tag 250 LMB in each of two lakes, and tag 500 LMB in a third lake. Dang, drafted to go out and catch, and hopefully periodically re-catch, 1000 bass. It's tough work, but someone has to do it...

My first tagged bass:

[everythingthatswims]

I tagged and released a 26" baby cobia from a pier in the Outer Banks last summer. Now if someone else catches it I will get a letter in the mail about the details! Pretty cool.