Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Tagging Help Needed

Here's a good response on this subject by Fishman.

Author Topic: "Tagging" Bass?
Dobber
Lunker
Member # 171

Rate Member posted July 18, 2002 09:48 AM
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Has or does anyone "tag" the bass they catch? It seems like it would be a nice management tool. If so, what is a reliable way to do it? What kind of results have you noted?

(Double posted under "Questions & Observations")
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Posts: 21 | From: Loganville GA | Registered: Jun 2002 | IP: Logged

Fishman
Lunker
Member # 115

Member Rated:
posted July 18, 2002 02:55 PM
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For short-term stuff (a year or two) Floy tags work o.k. web page here I would have to ask why you would want to tag your fish. For fun or do you really want to find out something about the population? You could potentially tag the fish you catch, then estimate your total bass population size based on recaptures. However, this approach requires a lot of assumptions, perhaps the most important being "equal catchability". In other words, all bass in your pond must have an equal chance of biting your lure, or your estimate will be skewed.

If the same bass tended to bite your buzzbait your population estimate would be too low. You'd be recapturing the same fish over and over. If those bass that bit learned that the bait was not edible, then your population estimate would be too big. You'd rarely recapture a tagged fish and it would look like you had an endless supply of fish.

And furthermore, if you did get an accurate estimate of population size, what would you do with that information? You wouldn't be able to compare it to prey densities because you would have no information.

About the only thing you could do is compare growth of recaptured fish from the date of first capture to the date of second capture. There are easier and more consistent ways to obtain that information, in my opinion.

Not to rain on your parade or anything. Catching a tagged fish is fun. "Hey, I caught Bob again!" But I have my doubts as to its utility as a serious management tool for the private lakeowner.
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Posts: 115 | From: Waco, TX | Registered: May 2002 | IP: Logged


There are other posts on the subject you can find by clicking on search in the upper right corner of this screen. Also the link to Floy fish tags is in the original post but didn't copy over.