Newsletter
TRACKING STOCKED FISH
How do you measure the success of stocking fish? There are many ways of doing this but one of the cheapest ways is to tag them. In recent years many of the stocking groups have been stocking Barramundi at around 200mm and tagging them all, or at least part of the batch of released fish. In the Cairns area they
MORETON BAY MARINE PARK TAGGING
What was the affect of the Moreton Bay Marine Park on recreational fish? Problem is that there is very little hard data to test this. Tagging has been going on since 1985 and provides at least a measure of the affects of the zoning plan on tagging. Based on Suntag map grids where fish have been tagged there were 883
BASS RECORD DISTANCE TRAVELED
Over 50 Barramundi have made a long distance trek of over 700km from Lake Theresa to the mouth of the Fitzroy River. Now it is the turn for a Bass to make a similar long distance trek. This one was tagged in Lake Boondooma near Kingaroy in Oct 2006. Almost 7.5 years later it was caught in the Burnett estuary
PUMICESTONE PASSAGE 18 YEARS ON
It is now 18 years since Pumicestone passage was closed to commercial netting. How has the fishing changed over that time? Suntag tagging records can provide some insights into what may have changed. Flathead have been on the improve. The number of Flathead tagged per tagger per day has steadily increased from 1.0 fish/day from 1985-1989 to 6.0 fish day
GRUNTER LIKE THE BURNETT
The 2013 flood in the Burnett River left Bundaberg with a number of scars that they are still recovering from. But what impact did the flood have on the fish? About a year after the flood there has now been a significant upsurge in the number of Barred Javelin (Grunter or Trumpeter depending on where you are) in the river.
RECORD DISTANCE TRAVELED
Last year our partner program, Westag in Western Australia got a remarkable recapture. A Samsonfish tagged off Rottnest Island west of Perth in Jan 2006 was recaptured not far from Port Lincoln in South Australia. It had been out for 7.25 years and was recaptured 2,160km from where tagged. That is double to furthest distance we have for a fish
BLUE THREADFIN GET TOGETHER
For some time now we have known that Blue Threadfin, those unusual whiskered fish previously known as “Salmon” have spawned at the mouth of the Fitzroy River in Central Queensland. It has taken a long time to get tagging data to support this and an interesting story is evolving. From 1985-2013 there have been 1,363 Blue Threadfin tagged in the
SNAPPER LEAVE HOME
Most Snapper hang out in their favourite area as juveniles, but like most teenagers move on when they become adults. From 1985-2013 there have been 12,477 Snapper tagged and 706 (5.7%) recaptures of individual fish in SE Queensland from Mooloolaba to the NSW border. Most of the fish tagged were juveniles in the size range 200:350mm. Of the recaptures there
RECORD FOR DAYS OUT
Staying with Golden Perch the record for the longest time between tagging and recapture for a Suntag fish was broken recently when a fish was recaptured 6,865 days (18.8 years) after being tagged in Feb 1995. The fish was tagged and recaptured in Lake Somerset and grew from 360mm to 455mm or just 95mm. So next time you catch a
THE GOLDEN PERCH URGE
While Barramundi move downstream on flooding the opposite is true for Golden Perch. For Golden Perch that moved over 10km between tagging and recapture 30 (83.3%) moved upstream while 6 (16.7%) fish moved downstream. Of the upstream recaptures 9 were caught just below the next weir upstream from where tagged that would have impeded upstream movement. However Golden Perch is