Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Marking Fish for Future Identification

I have seen multiple threads on Pond Boss where it would be very helpful to have certain fish in the pond marked for future identification.

For example, here is a recent thread where a pond owner has Florida LMB and Northern LMB in the same pond, and needs to keep culling some of the Northerns. It would have been hugely beneficial to have the Florida LMB marked in some fashion.

Florida or Native Bass

I am also including Theo's old thread from the archives from way back in 2007. (I don't know how much the advice has changed over the last 15 years?)

Archives - Fish Tagging 101

Can the experts give some good general advice to non-experts:

1.) What are the best current methods for marking fish?

2.) What is the best way for pond owners (without specialized equipment) to handle fish for marking?

3.) What are the risks of marking fish?

4.) What situations would you recommend for marking that your typical pond owner probably did not consider?

I am just going to use the Florida LMB example for starting the discussion. I would prefer more generally applicable answers from any of the experts that contribute to the thread.

If you took delivery of 100 Florida LMB in the 2-3# range, how would you mark them? Would you have them delivered into floating cages so you could mark them after they have had a little time in the pond to de-stress? That fish delivery is pretty expensive, does handling the fish for marking significantly increase the stocking mortality?

I am definitely looking for answers for guys like me - that don't know which questions we should have been asking! Some specific stories (successful or failures) from the pond managers and fish stockers in the forum might be helpful.

Thanks for any contributions to this thread,
FishinRod

If you are adding new fish have the hatchery fin clip the new fish.

That is an excellent idea. In my experience, experts/experienced people are far better performing tasks in their field compared to my amateur efforts. Also, they are handling the fish to sort, load, etc.

However, clipping is more time/effort for them. What would be the appropriate fee for them to charge? (Or a pond owner to offer for that task?)

There should be no fee for fin clipping. But, always let the hatchery you buy them from know exactly what you want before they load the tanks and head your way. That way there's no surprises. If you do it yourself, then orange handled Fiscars are the best shears I've used. You can get them in the sewing section of Wally World, and they're cheap, and come apart for cleaning.

Having said that, if fish stockings are rare, or unique to a situation like Tim K's, then fin clipping is just fine, and quick to do. Basically it tells you is that the fish wasn't born in your pond. But if you want to know when you stocked a fish, how much that fish weighed and how long it was at stocking, how much that particular fish grew in a year, or 5 years, what you were wearing when you got them, etc., etc., etc., then tagging is the way to go. The tag creates a UUID. That means a unique identifier that most likely will never be duplicated. Each fish you stock will have his/her own history from that point on.

EDIT: FishinRod, I'll try to answer what questions I can tomorrow. Going out this evening to pull CNBG for a neighbor.

Fin clipping will let you identify members of several different groups/cohorts. One can clip the upper tail fin, the lower tail fin, dorsal fin, or right and left pectoral fins to define multiple types of a species.

Will the clipping cause any negative consequences to the fish? Is it worth the risk?

It all depends on the amount of fish to be clipped and how big they are.

If I have to fin clip a batch of fish, I will put a mild sedative in a 5 gal bucket, and move a small qty of fish at a time. Put 25-50 fish in the bucket, clip as fast as I can at the edge of the pond and put them in the pond, I can clip fins pretty durn quick. I second the Fiscars that FireIsHot recommended.

You can also use colored floy tags to tag a batch of fish.

That is for a "batch" of fish, say a group of fish stocked on a certain date/month/year.

If individual fish are to be tracked, there are 2 ways (that I know of) to do it. Using a numbered Floy Tag which is typically good for 2-5 years is the least expensive way to tag them. Individual fish can be tracked and the average pond owner can track individual fish that way without any special equipment.

Then next way to tag fish is with a PIT tag. https://fishbio.com/fablab/beginners-guide-pit-tags You are talking a lot more money, each tag costs $3-$5+ shipping, the reading equipment is $1,500-$2,500 and the injection equipment is $200+. Plus the knowledge on how to do it, and the time - it's more time intensive than fin clipping or using a floy tag.

How many pond owners will want to fork out the $1,500 - $2,500 for the reader plus pay the hatchery +-$10/fish to PIT tag their fish?

The thing about the PIT tags is that they last the lifetime of the fish.

Theo, I didn't even think about clipping different fins, that does make sense.

Scott, I think Overton's is or was doing the PIT thing. It is expensive.

I have caught many BG 1-3 years after they were clipped. Over time the fins regrow, but have a kind of wavy pattern to them that clearly stands out.

Thanks for all of the good info!

Especially the range of options from clipping, all of the way up to "platinum-level" tagging with prices.

I always thought it would be informative to have your LMB marked with numbered tags and you could then chart their growth every time you caught each fish. I now think as the fish got bigger, they would get increasingly hook-shy, and the "growth experiment" would get very little data just about the time the LMB were getting to be pond records.

I could see marking being valuable in true fish surveying situations where fish are seined, shocked, or netted for analysis. Otherwise, probably more effort than it is worth?

Does anyone have any good examples where identification gave the pond owner some valuable information?

Rod, If you tag/mark 5 fish so you can identify any 1 of the 5 fish, you can absolutely gain knowledge from that.
Over a years time, what you had last year and what you have this year can tell you many things-especially about growth rates (read proper forage). Not all 5 will achieve the same growth rate/size. If 4 grow substantially then you know things are good. If 3-4 don't grow, again, it's a look-ahead view at what your management plans need to be, but it's "at that time", it's always changing but the info that can be potentially gained is why, I believe, most of us are here.
It doesn't matter how a tag/identifier is made, it's what we do with the data we get from it.