Tag & Release, with the sportfishing boat the "PROWLER" and Capt. Al Anderson

Sport fishing aboard the... With Capt. Al Anderson

RECENT TAGGING ACTIVITIES aboard the PROWLER
Year	#'s T/R	Career
2006	5,668	46,097
2007	4,081	50,166
2008	2,518	52,684

AGENCY	2009 SEASON	CAREER
ALS	1,823 striped bass	40,839
	231 bluefish	5,223
	164 codfish	1,898
	7 haddock	78
	38 fluke	47
	25 sea bass	41
	7 tautog	17
NMFS	1 porbeagle, 10 blue&mako sharks	1,374
NMFS	14 bluefin tuna	4,909
TOTALS:	2,157	54,841
Fishing community reported the recap of approx. 109 PROWLER tagged fish in ’09; 97 stripers, 6 blues, 2 codfish, 1 sea bass, 1 blue shark & 2 bluefin tuna. Clients helped recap’d. 4 tagged fish; 3 ALS & 1 USFWS tagged striped bass.

SOME TAGGING MILESTONES:

54,000 PLUS GAMEFISH TAGGED/RELEASED

Back on June 8th of 2009, a striped bass initially caught by Stuart Ray (RI) with us in August of ’08 at Block Is., was recap’d. off Long Is., NY by Tony Graziano. This 6.0 lb. striper marked the 1,900th striped bass of mine to be reported recaptured by the angling community.

A 13 lb. school bluefin tuna I marked in 1995 in the Mud Hole east of Block Is., RI was recap’d. in Sept. of 2009 (14 yrs, later) in Cape Cod Bay, MA, with a dressed weight of 981 lbs.

Barbara Block recently returned from a tagging trip (archival -recording) from New Foundland, Canada, in which she was marking 1200-1300 lb. giant bluefin tuna with satellite tags. She indicated some of those bluefin were the same body of fish we had tagged (winter (Jan./Feb., ’98 and ’99) on the Shoals of Cape Hatteras, NC. while on safari with clients.

Hard to believe it was 42 years ago (1968) I tagged and released my first school bluefin tuna for Frank Mather, III, who was then studying these fish at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. That same year I marked my first striped bass for the American Littoral Society, thanks to the urging of Bob Pond (recently deceased), founder of Stripers Unlimited.

With a bit of luck and cooperating weather, I may soon tag & release my 55,000th career gamefish, probably an o-w striped bass. With less than 50 fish to go, chances are also good I’ll see the reported recapture of my 2,000th tagged gamefish later this season.

PROWLER anglers T/R only 2100+ game fish in ’09, and in the process recaptured but 4 fish bearing tags. Unseasonable fall and early winter weather curtailed much of our O-W STRIPER fishing.