01.31.23 Going to join up with Gray Fishtag Research....

     Over the last few years I have seen the work done by New Jersey angler Chuck "Tyman" Manny. I don't know Chuck but he is probably one of the best big striped bass fisherman out there. He fishes, well it looks just about everywhere for just about everything, but his behemouth catches of striped 

bass are impressive. He consistently catches bass upwards of 60 pounds each year, with 40's and 50's at times seeming to be his average catch. When not in New Jersey he is down in the waters off Virginia and Maryland. While this is a fly fishing blog Chuck's catches are primarily made on live bait including eels and bunker along with trolling various trolling things. 

     Chuck works in conjunction with Grays Fishtag Research and The Fisherman Magazine on the Northeast Striped Bass Study. It is a tagging and tracking program that inserts a few different types of tracking devices to acquire data regarding striped bass and their travels throughout the year. Over the years I have caught and "called in" tag information in striped bass I have caught. One of the first 

was back in 2012 when I had my buddy Al out on my boat. We cut the tag and retruned it to the Littoral Society. I went ahead and joined up with them and tagged a couple of bass but that didn't last long. I didn't like "sticking" the fish nor keeping it out of the water for too long. 

     The last tagged fish I caught and followed through with was a schoolie bass caught on June 2, 2020. It was a USF&WS tagged fish. Since 1985 the USF&WS has tagged over 600,000 striped bass. The PA F&BC has tagged 5,938 striped bass in the Delaware Bay and River. Additional tagging programs inlude the Berkley Striper Club who has been tagging since 1986. 

     Most programs want you to cut and send in the tag, which I have done and recieved a certifcate along with some type of reward, like a hat or a patch. I don't understand why they don't just want you to record the information and let the fish go on it's way, so it can be tracked further, but I will learn more about that as I get into it. 

     I contacted Gray's Fishtag Research and heard back from Roxanne Wilmer one of the coordinators of the program. I am going to sign up and become a tagging partner. My interest is striped bass in the Delaware River. While tagging bass "out front" is benefical, I think targeting bass in their natal rivers would really be benefical as we would then know what strain the bass are and where they travel. 

     Manny, Gray's and The Fisherman have "installed?" the MiniPSAT tracker made by Wildlife Computers. That technology tracks the fishes travels and patterns. One is seen above and below is the recording made by a bass when it was caught in the New York Bight and and then again off

of Masachusetts in the same year. It is intersting to see where this one traveled from early June to mid-July in 2020. They also use a technolgy called mr-Pat which gives a start and stop data collection system, without the travels in-between, I think, similar to a dorsal tagged fish. Below is a video explaining the tagging program as seen on The Fisherman Magazine's You Tube Channel. 

      Most tagging programs require the partner to purchase the tags to beome involved in the program. Gray's asks for a donation of $129 for 25 tags. For me, I'm am not looking to tag every bass I catch, but the larger females who come up the Delaware to spawn. Do our Delaware fish

make their way up north past say Montauk after May and June? Or do they only go as far as the New York Bight? When I was talking about striped bass to Ben Whalley at the show the other day we were back and forth about where our, his and mine, striped bass come from and where they return to. He is in Maine, which puts him south of the Canadian fish and north of the Hudson, and maybe Delaware and Chesepeake fish. He stated the Kennebec River is a natal river for New England's striped bass. I found this interesting read regarding Maine's striped bass, HERE. 

      While tagging and catching and recording the striped bass data seems cool, there is a real science to it. Above is a graph taken from a 2007 paper in the Northern American Journal of Fisheries Management. Somehow that table above has to do with strip[ed bass tag return data. That, of course, is way above my intellect. 

     So if you have a favorite fishery and would like to contribute to the data pool look up one of the tagging programs out there. Make sure they're part of the Northeast Striped Bass Study. Catch and tag them up.