Near Shore Fish Tagging Program

I caught a tagged fish at Stillwater Cove in June and sent the tag in (with pics, measurements, and approx depth and GPS location), and never got my "reward" and never followed up. 

Few weeks ago I was diving and shot a tagged fish and called up DFG and gave them info and told them I had never gotten my reward from the previous one, so they said I would get two this time!!
 

Today in the mail I got a box with a cool hat, T-Shirt, 5 stickers and a really nice letter that said the following:

Dear Mr. Russell,

Thank you very much for your response to our nearshore fish tagging program. We truly appreciate your enthusiasm in providing detailed catch information as well as returning the tag.  Below is information on the two tagged fish you recaptured.

The gopher rockfish, with tag #1505, was originally caught by trap on July 8, 2008 at Stillwater Cove in Carmel Bay at 57 ft depth. It was recaptured on June 26, 2010 in 50 ft depth, and was at liberty for over 2 years (718 days). It was 208 mm in length, and grew to approximately 12 inches (300 mm).

The black-and-yellow rockfish, with tag #1438, was originally caught by trap on 9/7/2010 at Stillwater Cove at 23 ft depth. It was recaptured on January 9, 2011 at approximately 20 ft depth, and was at liberty for 124 days. It was 310 mm in length and grew to approximately 12.75 inches (323 mm).

The information you provided is invaluable to the nearshore fish tagging program, and we hope you'll enjoy the enclosed t-shirt and hat in return. Please contact us again if you come across tagged fish in the future.

Thank you,

Diane Haas
Biologist

Really appreciate the letter and gifts, and thought is was pretty cool that both fish were recaptured in approx same depth!!

Asked the biologist I spoke to on the phone in an ideal world if we come across a tagged fish should we take it for the data/tag or let it go (wondering if they were wanting them to be out there longer or if they were ready to collect the data)....he said ideally it would be great to get the data/tag number and safely release it (unless you really wanted to take it home and eat it), but obviously this is harder to do when spearfishing!!!
 

Anyway, thought you all might be interested!!
 
Sincerely,

Jim

Wow thats cool! So cool they sent you the letter telling about the fish

That's good of them to come through with the info on the first one.  Nice one, Jim.   

I CAUGHT a tagged fish!

Very Cool Jim. It would be cool if you could get the GPS of the trap. Close in depth (10% or close) is interesting. Steady growth. All good signs.

That is pretty cool.
But, for personal & selfish reasons, I was hoping those fish were originally captured/tagged inside the Pinnacles SMR. Because they are also tagging fish inside the Reserve, as part of the ongoing MLPA monitoring phase. (our reserves are up for review by Sept 2012 btw) 

awesome story!

Dude! that is way cool! I want to see a picture of the shirt and hat!

Jim, thanks for sharing this cool story! Last year, I had caught a tagged copper outta SWS but decided to release the fellow. Didn't know that I could just pull the tag off if one wishes to release the fish.

Glad to see that the DFG stood by their reward gift

Jim, thanks for sharing this cool story! Last year, I had caught a tagged copper outta SWS but decided to release the fellow. Didn't know that I could just pull the tag off if one wishes to release the fish.

Glad to see that the DFG stood by their reward gift

Daniel, if you catch another one, just record the tag #, take a pic on the hawg trough and then let him go....ideally you will be able to give DFG the tag #, a pic showing length and the approx depth and location where you got it!! If you have a GPS you could mark a waypoint.

Then the fish will still be out there and will hopefully be recaptured again in the future, giving them even more data!!
 
Sincerely,

Jim