My First Tagged Fish

[Ham]

My Buddy CajunAngler and I floated the Current River in late October this year. We did a three day trip. The food and fellowship was epic as always, but the fishing was only so so. 

One of the nicer fish I caught was late on the first day. Johnny hooked up with a nice fish which turned out to be a 15 inch LMB and a beat or two later I set the hook into a angry Smallie. It was a bit of a circus as current was pushing us into some wood,  but it all worked out.  We didn't get dumped on the river and we both caught our fish. 

As I took a quick pic I noticed something odd about it. A weird clump of algae was hanging back from rear of dorsal fin. 

I rubbed on it and saw it was an MDC tag. I quickly clipped it off and released the fish. I put the tag into the top pocket of my waders.  Later I sort of freaked out when I thought I lost ithe tag.  Once I rediscovered the tag, I put it in a hopefully safer location. 

I did make it home with the tag and I put in a call to MDC and started the process to getting more information about the fish and getting the $25 Check. 

MDC seemed pretty surprised that a tagged fish from that study was still out there. As per MDC,  "my" fish was captured 5/8/2013 about 3 miles about Powder Mill. It was 15.4 inches when tagged. 

It was about 16.5 inches when I caught 10/24/2017. I caught it several miles above Two Rivers. I spoke to a biologist that estimated it was 15 years old when I caught it. 

Bigger smallmouth take a long time to grow. Please be careful with them and try to release them quickly IF you are not harvesting them. They are Pretty special fish to me anyway.

 

 

 

[Phil Lilley]

Wow... that's incredible.  15 years old!

[Gavin]

That's pretty cool...Did you know that your address is showing?

 

[Ham]

I guess I did. Should I be concerned? 

[Ham]

Lol, my wife came in from the mailbox and the $25 Check is here now

[BilletHead]

    So cool Ham, thanks for sharing. I caught a channel cat below Truman dam that was tagged. Did not have the great story you have here but did have the 25 buck price tag like you got. Used to be a bunch of guys that fished up there when remote control boats were allowed. They would collect tags from big blue cats. Brag about it and not send them in. Without people like you sending in info that research becomes a mute point.  So what are you going to get with all those bucks? Zig Jigs or fencing material for baby chestnut trees ,

  BilletHead

[Ham]

[Ham]

Well Marty, I was thinking about trying to corner the market in paper clips, but I like tre idea of protecting the little trees better. 

[MoCarp]

that is amazing!

 

[moguy1973]

4 years avoiding being caught.  That's a pretty smart/lucky fish.  That tag was pretty algae covered  I'm surprised the tags last that long in the water.