Tagging Tales

Suntag is a world leading citizen science volunteer fish tagging program that is part of an Australian program that has tagged over 1,000,000 fish and was the first volunteer program in the world to reach that milestone. Data collected through the program is used to improve our knowledge base of recreational fishing by providing near real time information on the status of coastal estuaries and inland impoundments.

Thanks to the fish, we can provide you with some interesting stories that they tell.

A CREEK MANGROVE JACK PREFERRED AN ISLAND LIFE

This mangrove jack decided enough was enough after being tagged in Repulse creek in North Queensland and found a new home in the waters of mackerel was caught at Moon Island in amongst the bonito, and there have also been a few Watsons leaping bonito mixed in, plus a few mac tuna. The odd wahoo is being reported as well. The water temperature on the beach is currently 23°C, and the water is aqua blue. It doesn’t get any better than that.

If you want to chase bonito, a good way is to anchor up with a berley trail and use floating pilchards

Brought to you by the Lindeman Island group. Wouldn’t it be amazing to know what its movement were in those 1117 days it was out between captures?

WHAT TO DO IF YOU CATCH A TAGGED FISH

The information you will need to report your recapture is. The length of the fish and the location it was captured. Get a photo if possible.

To report the details of your recapture you and Swansea channel. From there they like to spill around the corner and lay on the back of Blacksmiths and Belmont Beach. From there, most of the flatties move out to sea and get in on the back of the inshore reefs, seemly recovering from their exertions. They typically move back to the estuary in May/June, joining the resident flatties that never left the estuary.

On the pelagic front, there should be some good fishing ahead in the coming weeks because our water temperature should hold fairly steady. We can expect dolphinfish (mahimahi) catches to improve, with a better class of fish on offer. At the time of writing, most of the dollies are small, but there should be better fish around this month and into April. Areas such as Swansea FAD and the outer trap line will become productive this month, with fish anywhere from 5kg+.

Dollies can be caught live baiting, or you can throw dead baits like pilchards or troll little 4-6” white or pink skirts. You can also get results on small, pink tinsel jet head lures.

At the moment there are plenty of kings in Lake Macquarie and Swansea Channel. Good catches are being reported at the dropover, and the cardinal markers are also holding relatively good numbers of kings. There are a lot of fish under 65cm (undersize), but they are still good fun.

(which will catch snapper as well). Alternatively, you can cast white soft plastics or chrome lures into the schools. You can troll for them as well with little white feathers, pink skirts or deep divers. One deep diver in particular that works very well on these fish is the Yozuri Crystal Minnow. When people tell me they want to catch bonito, I say “this is the lure for you”, and then the person comes back for more.

Late February is traditionally when we start to see tailor along our beaches and our coastal rocks, and March is tailor time. In recent weeks we’ve been seeing fish around 40cm+, which bodes well for the month ahead. It’s possible it may be delayed due to the warm water, but it’s more likely that we’ll see quite a few tailor coastally this month.

There are still a few whiting and dart around, and quite a few bream now as well. And now that flathead have finished their estuary spawning, we’re starting to see a few flathead move out of the estuary in Lake Macquarie

We are starting to see a slight uptick in squid numbers, but they’re still patchy (it’s possible that the huge influx of freshwater may have killed the larvae). We haven’t heard of any spectacular catches, but there are a few more being caught in the lake and the channel. If it’s ever going to happen it will happen in March, so watch this space. When we do the next report I’ll hopefully have good news on this front. March typically sees bream numbers start to build. It’s when we see travelling bream move along our coastline and start to come into the lake in earnest. We should also have two options: Call 1800 077001 or go to http://crystalbowl. infofishaustralia.com. au/suntag/recaptures/ recapture_form_1. html and fill in the form.

In return you will receive a certificate providing the details of the tagging and recapture of your fish, as a thank you for providing the information.