ORI Tagging Programme

[Jody]

HolyGT, Thanks for the contact number,will get a faster response than by email. I'll keep rechecking the site though, some hosting companys have terrible uptime.

[Conrad Botes]

I have had some flack from RS and ski-boat conventionals before that FF should not tag as most their fish will die anyway from lactic acid build up, stress, eaten by sharks after long fight, etc. Bollocks in my view, but still stigma FF have to deal with.

I have had one other tag return - a Catface Rockcod from Umkomaas. Only feedback was that it became part of someone Briyani dinner after a year of freedom and a couple of centimetres growth, but still a resident at Umkomaas when caught.

Hi Arno

Interesting attitude you are getting from the ski-boat guys in your neck of the woods. In our part of the world CAR is a very foreign phenomenon amongst the ski-boat crew. I think it's ridiculous - the attitude about fish dying when caught FF. We get the same in Cape Town when tagging and releasing cape snoek. Yet the ORI report shows that some of these snoek has been recaptured more than a year and a half later. It's a difficult one to figure out - this attitude from the conventional bunch.

On a diiferent note. Does catching a fish severely traumatise them? During a recent tagging and releasing event at De Hoop nature reserve, a single specimen of Galjoen was caught, tagged and released 3 times within a couple of of hours.

[HolyGT]

That shows you just how locallised Galjoen are and vulnerable to exploitation.

In KZN there has been initaitives to get the ski-boat and paddle ski guys to catch and realease - like the Captain Morgan Challenge and the Gummy Bait Competition.

Problem is that a lot of the guys here sell their catch and don't like us T&R guys that only keep the odd fish. They see the only reason for low fishstocks as the trawlers and longliners' fault.

Mostly the banter is lighthearted - "want me to help you tag that fish with my gaff, then we can release it into my hatch" to real ******* comments.

One of the ways to overcome this is to persist and fish with them and hopefully influence the younger guys taking up the paddling sport or ski-boating that you do not need to keep all your fish to sell or give-away. Keep waht you are going to use and put the rest back.

Some of the heavyweights we are up against, very sad to see that breeding stock lost - must add that this pic comes from our paddling site and one or two guys have been critical off them killing the Reds.

[HolyGT]

Just received a complementary ORI tagging DVD with ORI's July newsletter. Well done to ORI in putting this together with the help of the guys from Blackfin!

There is a great explanation by Bruce Mann on the different tags as well tagging techniques. Hopefully these DVD's will make their way to tackle dealers/clubs at minimal or no cost.

With the D tags, FF can target the smaller fish, heavier than 0,5kg and longer than 30cm FL. Also most off the priority species are targetted by FF : Blacktail, Baardman, all Galjoen, Bronze Bream, Dusky Kob, Shad, all Grunter, Wave Garrick, Stonebream, Perch, River Snapper, Brusher, Pignose, White Stumpie, Wildeperd.

On the Game fish side, Amberjack are on the list(not surprising with the amount caught by the 80M+ jiggers), all Kingfish, all Billfish, Cape YT, Kaakap, Couta, Natal snoek, Leervis, Queenfish, Tuna, Cobia, Springer, Wahoo.

In the Newsletter there are interesting tag returns from GT's that point to them having "home ranges". I do believe that some of the fish are residential in an area and migrate deeper/shallower instead of the widely believed north- south and visa versa migration. This should afford them "bottomfish" status and protection vs gamefish category they hold currently. But thats just my opinion...