DF&G survey

 Do you always,sometimes,or never call DFG with information about fish caught with survey tags attached? I'm just curious,I've called and turned in tagged fish in the past,even handed the tag to one guy while out fishing. He said I would recieve a hat or t shirt or something but nothing ever came of it.
 Is this just another broke ass state thing or what? I always try to do the right thing but if I turn in tags will it bite me in the ass one day when they say......sorry, you caught your last fish,the tagged one. 

Do you always,sometimes,or never call DFG with information about fish caught with survey tags attached? I'm just curious,I've called and turned in tagged fish in the past,even handed the tag to one guy while out fishing. He said I would recieve a hat or t shirt or something but nothing ever came of it.
 Is this just another broke ass state thing or what? I always try to do the right thing but if I turn in tags will it bite me in the ass one day when they say......sorry, you caught your last fish,the tagged one. 

I've caught/shot several and have turned them in and have gotten my hat and shirt and stickers (shirt is way cooler than the hat!!), and a nice letter explaining when/where the fish was originally captured, how much it grew since then etc...

If you catch one down in Carmel or Monterey I have the email addresses of the biologists in charge of the program and they are very nice and helpful....

I am actually on a mission to find a tagged RF, video tape it close up in his hole and record the tag number without having to actually shoot it!! 

I actually need to do a follow-up for Porky cuz he mailed a tag in awhile ago and has not gotten his hat or shirt yet!! 

My 2 cents...it is a cool program and worth participating in. If at all possible, record tag number, length (picture on trough) and location and then let the fish go to get even bigger and for more data to be collected in the future.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I am actually on a mission to find a tagged RF, video tape it close up in his hole and record the tag number without having to actually shoot it!! 

Jim, that would be so cool.

Aaron caught a ling last year off of the butterfly house that had a tag reading "cash reward". He called the # on the tag and was told that the funding for the project had dried up.

yup, i returned my tagged greenling.

Also my wife got $25 from a German Brown she caught in Stampede Res.

I returned a Striper tag in February, but have not seen anything yet.

2 years ago I caught a tagged blue rockfish and sent it in.  A month ago, a get a call from moss landing labs.  The tag went to DFG but its a moss landing tag.  took 2 years to get from DFG to Moss. 

the gal was really nice, took some info, sent me $20 and a little bio on the fish. 

would I do it again?  Yes. 

2 years ago I caught a tagged blue rockfish and sent it in.  A month ago, a get a call from moss landing labs.  The tag went to DFG but its a moss landing tag.  took 2 years to get from DFG to Moss. 

the gal was really nice, took some info, sent me $20 and a little bio on the fish. 

would I do it again?  Yes.

2 years??

That was FAST Eugene!!

 

I won't pretend to understand DFG and the various programs they have, but I have been really impressed with the responsiveness and friendliness of the biologist folks I have dealt with out of Monterey...

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I have caught two tagged striped bass in the delta one about 42 years ago and one about 3 years ago both times they have sent me a card with the release information and size when tagged and gave me back the tag.

I got a $50 reward tag from a dino a couple years ago that did eventually pay out, but that was then...

I would still turn in the info if I got one.

Dreamcatcher,

I am not involved in the tagging program, but this might be an explanation. DFG (and nearly every other state agency) is really hurting for cash.  If the tagging program is anything like other fisheries programs temporary/seasonal employees are used to enter data/write and send mail.  Most of the temps have limited contracts.  Due to Gov Browns' executive order  (statewide hiring freeze) the temps are not being rehired which creates a backlog of paperwork.

Hi Avid Anglers -

This particular thread was pointed out to by another 'fish-head', and I couldn't resist responding.  (I am a graduate student working on local fishes and a project technician on one of these local tagging projects, and I like catching fish, releasing fish, eating fish, and studying fish).

First let me thank all you anglers who do call in your tagged fish information, whether it says reward or not.  Each call on a tagged fish in a rare bit of information for us!  However, I saw that many did not get a response from the various agencies that tagged the fish, which is a shame.  Let me explain.

As a researcher, I'm sure whoever originally thought of the project to tag the fish is incredibly interested in your information, and would like to reward you for taking your time call them.  However, that fish may have been at liberty so long after tagging that the original project coordinator may have moved on to different project and/or moved away.  Projects change hands often and information is lost in the process.  An example from our project is that our oldest tags have a phone number that is no longer in use printed on them.  Not helpful for people who just want to call in, huh?  But nothing can be done at this point.  (But our lab name is on the tags, so a quick Google search should reveal our contact information if a fish is caught.) 

Second, and most importantly, is money.  Tagging projects usually win a large grant or federal support initially, and then when the number of tag returns aren't that high, interest is lost and a second term is not granted.  The reason for the low number of tag returns is that there are really so many fish out there, and even with best efforts, we can only tag a small fraction of them.  Which is why it is so rare to get a call on a tagged fish!  And of course lack of funds is why some projects cannot continue to give out rewards even if the tags says it offers one.

Thirdly, there are a lot of past and present tagging projects out there.  Some are small in scope; a few fish caught during a student project, that student graduates, leaves the school/area, and forgets all about those fish still at large with tags in them.  Then there are projects whose funds fizzel out and/or efforts are re-directed whether they like it or not, so it may become impossible to track them down.  A few larger projects and agencies should be fairly easy to find using search terms.  Among the projects still operating, we try to keep in contact as best as possible when we get calls on each others' tags.  But, sometimes it's not efficient; I recognized one angler who posted that turned our tag to DFG and it took two years for them to call us!  I also had an experience where an angler of ours got a tagged black rockfish from a federal agency that said Washington on it, and with +2 weeks of making calls and detective work, I still could not find a contact person for it.  And I'm supposed to be 'on the inside'!  So, I really understand how frustrated anglers can feel when they catch one of these fishes whose projects are long gone.  I'd apologize, but we're doing our best here to stay afloat and fishing, so our project doesn't become a ghost!

All that being said, please call in your tagged fish!  Though we probably have a less than 1% tag return rate for our fish, we get all sorts of information from a well reported fish.  Exact GPS of capture location gives us net movement from the release point, health of fish and tagging site helps us estimate fish recovery after tagging/ handling (which is estimated to be very good for our project), exact length measurement with exact date of capture can give us a growth rate. 

No, you will not get in trouble for calling in a fish for us, ever.  (That is not encouragement go fishing somewhere you should not or for something you should not!)  But there is simply no way to prove where a fish was caught, even if the fish was released with tags in a Marine Protected Area.  Fish move, sometimes large distances.
 Also, we do tag under-sized lingcod, kelp greenling, and cabezon, so if you happen to get a species who is still undersized, but has a tag, please do your best to get the tag number, color, phone number, and project/institution from the tag, and note your location before releasing any undersized fish.  We also tag canary rockfish, again, please report the tag but release the fish.  A tag on a restricted fish doesn't mean you can take the fish simply to get us the information, DFG wardens won't buy it. 
If you do get such a situation, please report to us honestly.  I won't report you, but if you do take a fish you shouldn't have, I may scold you...

Well, I wrote a lot, but I hope that answers some questions. 
Cheers, another Fish-Fan.

rockfishforever

thanks for your thoughtful explanation.  I am sure based on your writing, that you are an intelligent hard working person, so please do not take this as a criticism of you or your colleagues but rather the methodology and management practices of the "gubmint."

I really believe your description cements in my mind why our government is so F-ed up.  By definition, tagging programs are long term.  To lose the phone number on a long term project is just plain dumb.  To not be able to have a plan of succession for a long term project is poor planning, nothing more.  Having zillions of "little" projects that fail to produce is not a lack of funding but a misuse of funding.

As an example, my oldest son is in college yet Amazon.com still knows that I did at one point buy Magic School Bus books and still recommends them to me at times.  That data is at least 16 years old.  Heck my little fleck of a business maintains detailed records of customer activity for 7 years.  A database that ALL tagging programs add to is not impossible and might actually reduce redundancies and create real data that is broad in scope and not microscopic.

e2g-

Thanks for the compliment.  Yes, I did take my time on that post (and this one!), and I would like to say I work my hardest, most of the time. 

So, yes, you are right, it would be awesome to report to just one large tagging headquarters, but I don't think soon, say next 5yrs.  Other than sharing our databases with other researchers personally, the best way to convey our findings is publishing.  However, it is true that the most powerful tool for answering questions is raw data. 

Yes, most tagging project are not long term.  It would not be impossible to make a catch all tag-recapture database, but who will put up the money to create, collect, and maintain staff to watch over it?  We cannot, at a time when we are striving to keep our project going.  (The main aim of our work is to monitor the fish populations inside/outside MPAs, and tagging is secondary. Tagging is a component that is easily added with little extra cost, at the time of sampling, anyways, and we get all sorts of info from it). It is the money problem again.   

We try to increase the information of our medium-scope project by working with other organizations who collect data similarly, we have made it possible to combine both types of our data (monitoring and tagging) into a larger data set.  So, we agree with you, and believe this is the way to go.  It will just take a while before all projects consider working with each other in this way. 

And, projects with little tag return information shouldn't be viewed as failures.    Like our project, tagging may be secondary in many instances were fish were primarily sampled for lengths, weights, sexes, and species numbers, to get a handle on the population status.  A project is only a failure if it doesn't report its findings, even if they have to say, well, we tagged a bunch of fish, but we didn't get many back.  Either there's a lot of fish out there, there's a problem with our protocols, the fish are losing the tags, or people aren't reporting tags.  (If it's anything other than lots of fish, then it must be addressed).  You can't squeeze blood from a stone, either by producing data or getting grant money.

It's really difficult to do both collect mirco- and macro- scope information at the same time, because projects are created with specific questions in mind, but both aspects can be equally interesting and important.  For example, black rockfish movements in Carmel Bay or black rockfish movements of the US west coast?, both legit research topics.  If you did the entire coast, you might not even care about Camel Bay anymore, and not sample there at all, but you could get coastwide movements.  But if an MPA was put in Carmel Bay, you might be really interested if the fish moved in and out of that particular reserve. 

Just now, say last 20 yrs, such large scales questions are starting to be investigated.  But you can't answer questions that take 20 yrs of data if you've just started, right?  That is why long term research loses support relatively quickly, and why there are so many short term projects.  It looks good to study for a bit, have a solid answer, and move on.  But the impact you have with such work is usually small. 

Well, that may have gone completely off topic, and got way to wordy (sorry, I just want to explain best I can!).
But, it is highly possible that such a database will eventually be created.  And as long a researcher effectively publishes their work, their data will be available long after their project is gone, so keep that in mind. 

So don't give up on us, and give us a little moral support, if you can.  Those fish are wily.  It'd be so much easier if every fish popped out of his egg/ mom pre-tagged, or with a little tracker...

Rockfishforever,

Thanks for posting up and sharing your side of the story!! 

Eugene, I hear your concerns and opinions and they seem valid and make a lot of sense as well...would make a lot of sense to have one big database for sure...hopefully one day that will be the case!!

My 2 cents is even if there is a chance that the tag I return will help provide data to an ongoing study I will turn it in...

Cool discussion about an important topic!!
 
Sincerely,

Jim

 So, my fishing partner and I went directly to F&G with our tags and asked what we should do with them.
 We met Scot Lucas who knew the person who tagged the fish and was happy to take our information.
He had a box of t-shirts and hats from the program and gave us each one . He took our names/address/phone#
 and said we would recieve info on the fish we caught. He told us we could even C&R the fish,just note the # on the tag and note what species/lenght/and possible gps and depth. He was excited to see us return them and said it would help the study both short term and long. We were happy to participate and encourage others to do the same.Do the right thing.