Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Hey everybody.
My DNR bud sent this to me this morning. As mentioned before a few times, the DNR is going ahead with their walleye tracking program on Lake Huron this year. These few tagged fish will give the DNR and us a handle on just what migration habits our Saginaw Bay walleyes are developing (if any) and maybe give all of us an idea about what happened last summer when they supposedly disappeared. Below is the report and tagging information sent to me by my BIO-DNR buddy with that new tagging information. They are offering a $100.00 reward for reporting and returning the tags, but I plan on returning any tagged fish I catch to the water, to continue having it give all of us migration information. I urge all of you to do the same. And like always, be safe, fish smart and tight lines. Capt. Dan.
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The Michigan DNR is looking for your help, starting this spring there is a new tagging study happening. This new tagging program is to increase ours and your knowledge on walleye movement and better manage the fishery, a tracking study is being conducted with walleye tagged with transmitters from Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Each fish will have up to 2 external tags and 1 internal transmitter. In the event that you catch and keep one of these tagged walleye, there is a $100.00 reward for reporting the fish and returning the internal transmitter.
If you catch one please follow these instruction:
1. Record when and where you captured the fish
2. Immediately remove the internal transmitter from the fish and rinse with water. Store the transmitter at room temperature. You may keep the fish.
3. For reward and arrangements to mail in the transmitter, please contact the USGS Hammond Bay Biological Station:
(989) 734-4768 (Mon-Fri, 7:00 am - 4:30 pm). At other times, leave a message at extension 111. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated!
Read more: http://www.glfc.org/telemetry/walleye.php
Edited by walleye express 3/4/2011 8:13 AM
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 tagged-walleye.jpg (43KB - 165 downloads)
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | After reading the procedures of this new tagging/tracking plan, I had a couple of questions of my own. My questions and those answers below.
(Q) Is there going to be any walleye age/sex/size criterion used when tagging and placing tracking transmitters? The reason I ask is that many of us figured last summer that it was the bigger walleyes that were attracted by and that migrated North to take advantage of the BIGGER and more plentiful schools of Lake Huron smelt. And indeed it seemed the ones people were catching in those outer bay/lake zones were the bigger fish. I realize you want to know where and what all the varied sizes are doing, but also realize that picking the most hardy fish (the bigger ones) is probably best and that not all sizes would tolerate what might be a stressful process, given the physical, intrusive process and tracking hardware. Can you give us any more informational skinny on this? Also, how and what is the procedure for planting the tracking hardware? Dan.
(A)Dan:
Yes, there will be some criteria, sort of. Most importantly will be sex. We’ll be striving for approximate ratios. We’ll be using the annual jaw tagging collection on the Tittabawassee River (at the end of this month) during their spawning run to select fish and that run often has a large component of large mature fish. Generally speaking we’ll be tagging in proportion to the run (sizes, sexes, ages) but we’ll depart form that if necessary to ensure we get equal sex ratios and plenty of large fish represented for the very reasons you were asking about.
As for the implanting, the fish are first collected via electrofishing which temporarily stuns them. By the time they get back to shore they are fully awake again so we select the fish for surgery and then its placed on an operating cradle and fresh flow is inserted into its mouth (just a hose with water from a bilge pump) and the flow is aimed over its gills to provide it with oxygen. Then electroanesthesia is applied. We have experimented with chemical anesthesia and there are some advantages to that approach but in the end we opted for a commercial electroanesthesia device that paralyzes the fish and essentially knocks it out as long as the current is applied. It works instantly and is gone instantly upon shut off.
The surgery spot is disinfected and then an incision is made on the belly about 2 inches long with a scaple. The tag is then slipped inside the body cavity and we suture up the incision. Done by a trained crew, it only take between 4 and 8 minutes each. The fish is also given an external tag. We ten put the fish in an observation tank (just a cooler really) and we make sure its ok by watching it for a while and then we release it back into the river. Pretty simple really. We did some practice fish last fall and they handled the stress fine. The fish getting the transmitters will not get a jaw tag or be used for spawn collection. We hope to get all 200 deployed within a couple of days work. |
