Resort Development

We just returned from 4 days of wahoo fishing in the Bahamas. Base camp was Old Bahama Bay on the west end of Grand Bahama Island. West End as it is referred to is about 60 miles from the Florida coast. The resort is has 73 rooms, a 72 slip marina and a couple restaurants along with a tiki bar overlooking the bonefish flats to the North. The fishing was good as we caught a dozen nice wahoo up to 40 lbs.

The disturbing part of the trip is the new resort being developed on the 6 mile stretch of the island. The scale of its environmental footprint on the local ecosystem is huge as you can see in the photo below. Construction is underway. 6 miles of the 10 miles of canal are already dug out of the center of the island to make a man-made tropical paradise. Ships to 200 feet in length will soon come and go. a 10,000 foot runway can acomodate all but the largest commercial jets. I am sure the development is good for the community and island - jobs, taxes, improvements in local infrastructure and schools will benefit from the influx of people and money. It is a choice the Bahamian government made... Atlantis redux.

The real question is what will be the impact on the marine ecosystem? What is the impact of two championship golf courses? slips for 500 fishing boats, dive boats, yachts? What is the developer doing to protect and preserve the ecosystem that they have just invaded? What will happen to the conch and bonefish flats to the North? the reefs to the South and West? What does it mean when a corporation decides to take a sparsely inhabited tropical ecosystem and pave it, dig it up and make a man-made tropical paradise? Pure wealth extraction from Nature. Our scientific and conservation work is just beginning in the Bahamas... documenting the fragile nature of the reefs, tidal flats and steep walls, publishing our results and driving awareness of all there to force the choice between man-made paradises and Nature's paradises. Life is short. Get involved.

Killer Whales in the Bahamas

Here at MVF we are constantly pushing the edge to learn more about the Bahamian ecosystem. A week ago we decided to explore the bonefish flats via small plane to better understand the habitat, fish movements and sandbars. We were keenly interested in the flats behind Joulters. With Kevin as pilot and Billy as top spotter, we flew in at around 1000 ft. Billy say something and we did a slow spiral to investigate. And guess what? A pod of Killer Whales swimming to the North just off Andros. I shot a couple photographs but upon hearing the plane they went down. Unfortunatley I had my wide angle lens on the camera to shoot the flats instead of my telephoto lens.

Upon returning to the Makara, I logged into the OBIS-Seamap site (www.seamap.env.duke.edu) and did a search on Killer Whale sightings in the Bahamas. I found out that there have been 5 sightings in the past 20 years reported by the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization. I emailed them the sighting information plus pictures so they would not think I was crazy. I received a great email back from them saying thanks for the report and helping them expand their sightings database.

I am always amazed by what we find on each trip to the Bahamas. The rich diversity, the incredible people and the opportunity to explore and learn there is immense. And on every trip we contribute to the conservation of the islands in some way - a killer whale sighting, a chance meeting with an experienced guide, more data, more posts like this. Check it out.

Tagged Bonefish

We are launching a new bonefish study in 2008 in the Bahamas where we will be exploring several different island groups to characterize the bonefish populations. We expect to spend the next three years evaluating the number and size of bonefish observed, caught and tagged at different locations which we will reveal at the end of the study. There is significant fishing pressure on bonefish in the Bahamas as it is one of the few sources of real income for some of the remote islands in the country. Our existing base of knowledge spans from Grand Bahama Island down all the way to the Turks and Caicos. We hope we can use the Makara as a research base station, enlist additional anglers and develop a baseline study for bonefish populations in selected areas. We will be providing more information before we launch the project in January, 2008.

We set out on a hot July day to explore the tuna canyons south of Freeport, Bahamas and to also explore the Northern section of the Berry Islands around Great Harbour Cay. With a crew of Carson, Brandon, Billy, Steve and myself, we made the run to Lucaya in flat seas and fished the tuna canyon that afternoon with live bait (greenies and sardines caught off Juno Pier). We caught 5 nice yellowfins with the largest around 60 lbs. The next day we explored the flats on the North Side of Grand Bahama Island and finally ran into a large school of bonefish, numbering about 500 fish. They spooked after we hooked one and we looked for them for an hour in 90+ degree heat and a blazing sun. We bugged out back to the Makara looking for shade and headed out to spearfish 40 miles East of Lucaya that afternoon.

Billy and Carson speared some nice hogfish and a grouper. Unfortunately the blood trail attracted a 8 ft reef shark that, after circling them in the water, came at them. Billy poped the shark in the head with his pole spear and Capt Steve backed the Makara down. We got the divers out of the water safely and called it a day.

We ran down to the Northern Berry Islands to check out Ambergris Cay, which is a massive bonefish flat located 20 miles North of our favorite spot, Chub Cay. Unfortunately the water must have been in the mid 90s and we didn't see any bones. Caught some cudas in the slot and spent the night on the anchor in some beautiful grass flats. We caught some nice mutton snappers then headed back to Lucaya to end the trip.

The yellowfin tuna fishing has been awesome South of Lucaya this year. The upwelling in the Tuna Canyon just attracts large schools of bait. The fish are bigger and you can always find them after 5 or 6 pm when they start to feed on the surface. We did not see or hear about any dolphin being caught. The water at 88 degrees is just too hot for the green monsters.

We will probably wait until the weather cools off before our next trip. Will let you know when we head out again. I will post some pictures from our whale shark trip to Isla Holbox, Mexico soon.

We received a report from Don Hammond that a 25 inch dolphin we tagged (tag #X04107) on April 9, 2007 near Chub Cay, Bahamas was recaptured by a commercial fishermen off Brunswick, GA on May 30, 2007. We estimate the fish traveled 560 miles over a 51 day period. The report included that the fish was 33 inches in length when recaptured, equating to an 8 inch length increase over the 51 days. According to Don Hammond, dolphin are reported to grow 2 inches per week in tropical waters.

We have tagged over 300 dolphin so far in 2007. This is our second recapture with the first one being reported back on May 1, 2007 having traveled only 30 miles from the same tag site as X04107. We will be back on the water tagging during the last week of July. Before that we head back to the Yucatan to Isla Holbox to dive with whale sharks with Dr. Rachel Graham as part of a long term study that includes tracking these magnificent fish off Belize, Mexico and Madagascar. I will report back with pictures and hopefully video clips from this next expedition. In the meantime write me at tom@mvftag.com with questions or comments.

Circle hooks versus J hooks

I know the issue of J versus circle hooks has been settled with numerous studies showing the high mortality. MVF funded a study back in 2003 with John Graves from VIMS showing that one third of all white marlin caught with J hooks died within 1 week. He employed pop-up psat tags to obtain this data. NMFS came out with a ruling earlier this year to ban J hooks from any billfish tournament on the East Coast. Unfortunately the reaction from the multi-million dollar tournaments forced NMFS to postpone the new rule until 2008. It is hard to change your fishing techniques after years of success. Circle hooks force captains and mates to learn to rig differently: no more flashy skirts, islanders or seawitches... makes rigging baits boring, to say the least.

I must be honest and say we use both circle and J hooks on the Makara and have resisted eliminating J hooks from use especially in the dolphin tagging study. The pictures posted in an earlier blog of the dead sailfish, and Billy digging the J hook out of his gut moved me. I hate change just like everybody else, but either we quit fishing or we change our ways. We cannot kid ourselves that our boat's fishing tactics do not make a difference. They do. We need to change how we fish to protect the fish.

The waters off Cancun and Isla Mujeres are full of fish. There is less fishing pressure now: no live bait allowed except by local captains and the use of circle hooks have ensured the highest survival rate of migratory billfish, and dolphin continue strong into the Gulf and up the East Coast. East Coast and Gulf fishermen need to wake up and do the right thing for the fish and themselves. Circle hooks.

Expedition completed, Makara back home

The crew brought the Makara back to its home port in North Palm Beach this week. The team fished 11 days off Isla Mujeres, had 237 fish events- tagged, released, missed or boxed. We tagged 134 dolphin plus one wahoo. We also caught a number of billfish. We went 7 for 10 on white marlin and 12 for 26 on sailfish. On a different measure, we traveled an average of 70 miles per day to fish. The fishing grounds were about 15 miles offshore so we averaged around 40 miles of trolling per day.

Our best tagging day was June 2, 2007 when we tagged 36 dophin. Our worse day was June 11, 2007 where we did not catch a single one. We knew there was a Spring migration off Isla. Our goal was to tag enough fish to find out where they go once they leave. We suspect they follow the current and head North in the Gulf or around Cuba up the Florida Straits. For now we are beginning our planning for the next tagging expedition and wait to see if any of our tagged fish are recaptured.

I want to say thanks to Captain Steve Unsell and Mate Billy Gerlach for great work during the trip. The got the Makara ready to go and kept it running smoothly the whole trip. Billy worked every night preparing 6-8 dozen baits for the next day. I also want to thank the Shelby Jihad - Jim, Carter, Mateo - for coming down and helping out in the cockpit. I'll have more to say about the rest of the crew in another blog...

Update: 130 dolphin tagged

We thought the small schoolie dolphin had all passed thru migrating North for the summer, but we were wrong. A school of dolphin hit the spread and we had 6 fish hooked up in less than a minute. We were able to tag 20 fish and increase our trip tag count to 131 tags deployed.

Our fishing effort has been well-defined along the edge of the shelf off the Yucatan Pennisula. We have worked a 30 mile section of the reef in depths ranging from 100 to 400 feet. The dolphin and sailfish bites have been evenly distributed throughout the area, but the white marlin bites have only happen in the northern portion of the reef. We are still analyzing our fishing effort tracks to understand more about this. As soon as we complete the analysis we will post the tracks and tag locations on our website.

One note about navigational charts for this area is that they have not been updated in some time. You will note in the map above the extensive size of the Aerosmith Bank location. We found the size and depths displayed for the bank were off as much as 3 miles in places and totally inaccurate. Part of this may stem from the fact that the pinnacle mount dates are from 1947.

Some of the future work of the Makara will be to accurately detail bottom topography along with our track and tag points in selected fisheries. This is the topic of future blog posts about the development of a fishing effort/catch GIS tool for use by recreational fishermen. Stay tuned.

Two Week Update

We have now been in Mexico for two weeks. In eleven days of fishing we have tagged 111 dolphin and one wahoo. Plus we placed a Microwave Telemetry pop-up satellite tag on a 58 inch male dolphin. This was only the 5th sat tag ever placed on a dolphin. 76 of the tags were deployed during our first three days when schools of small dolphin were still in the area. During the last 8 days of fishing we have caught much larger dolphin, but did not find any big schools.

We tried deep dropping on a few different spots south of the island and on Arrowsmith bank. We caught a wide variety of fish including a pink porgey, tilefish, button snapper, 2 black snapper, and 3 mystic groupers. The last drop of the day we pulled up this ugly brute pictured below. Its a large mystic which weighed close to 50 lbs.














After several straight days of fishing it was time for a short break. We spent today snorkeling on a few of the reefs surrounding the island and relaxed a bit by the pool. Tomorrow we are going out trolling again to tag additional dolphin. The fish are large and difficult to tag but these are the ones we were targeting on this trip. We are using circle hooks on dolphin today. In the past days we have been using J hooks knowing we could hook them fast without a drop back, get a simple mouth hook and release them without injury. One of the consequences of using J hooks is gut hooks and a 30 percent chance of mortality. We will explore how these circle hooks work today using drop back techniques and report back.

J hooks and dead billfish

We completed our 10th day of tagging dolphin yesterday. We have placed 110 tags on dolphin and one tag on a small wahoo. One of the unfortunate parts of fishing is the needless killing of billfish from the use of J hooks instead of circle hooks. We saw this dead sailfish in the water, brought in the boat and did a quick investigation of its mouth, gills and stomach. We discovered a size 3/0 J hook in its stomach. The fish still had color so it must have died just recently.
Marine Ventures funded a project in 2002 with John Graves at VIMS to investigate the mortality rates from both J and circle hooks on white marlin. The results were clear that post release death was around 30% for J hooks and less than 5% for circle hooks. While the US government is still struggling to implement a circle hook rule, anglers need to come to terms with their own choice of hooks. The more J hooks used, the fewer billfish. It is that simple. We each have to step up and assume responsibility for our fishing techniques. Regardless of the impact of longliners or other foreign fishing fleets, we each need to do our part to protect these awesome fish.Panel

Success

We placed a pop-up satellite tag on a dolphin yesterday. It is programmed to pop off in 30 days, float to the surface and then transmit the data collected by the Argos satellite system back to Don Hammond. The data will give critical insight into the daily movements and behavior. Don Hammond has tagged 4 other dolphin with these tags off the East Coast, deploying the first in 2005.

Securing the tag on a dolphin is a complicated procedure, and with a $4500 price tag, mistakes could be costly. Early yesterday we caught a bull dolphin which was 58" in length and hooked in the corner of the mouth, making it a perfect candidate for the tag. Bringing a fish of this size into the boat and safely controlling it was a major obstacle. Once we brought it through the tuna door, it took several people to subdue it with towels and oxygenate its gills with saltwater while Don Hammond manually inserted the tag into its back. Despite these difficulties, the operation went smoothly and the tagged dolphin was released safely after spending just over a minute in the boat.

Fishing has continued to be slow. We are still catching several larger dolphin each day, but we have not encountered the schools of small fish that we saw during the first couple of days. Waves today range from 8-10 feet and we have decided to take a break from fishing and explore the local culture.

Compared to our first three days fishing, the last two have been slow, particularly in terms of dolphin tagged. Weather conditions were ideal Sunday with little wind or waves. We tagged 7 dolphin and 4 were estimated to exceed 30". These fish were too big to bring into the boat and required us to use a longer tag stick while they were still in the water (as pictured above). Dolphin fishing was also cut short in the afternoon. We headed to deeper water in an attempt to catch a blue marlin and complete an elusive grand slam after catching 3 white marlin and a sailfish. We didn't find any blue marlin, but we almost hooked a very large bull dolphin which came into our spread just before we headed home.

Departure from port was delayed this morning due to a low pressure front moving through the area which brought heavy rain. Today was the first day biologist Don Hammond was on board, but unfortunately, after a late start, fishing was slow. We fished 5 hours and didn't get a single dolphin bite. Other boats in the area did not have much success either, and many did not land anything. The highlight of our day was releasing a nice white marlin. Tomorrow we hope conditions improve so we can find some big schools of dolphin and deploy a good number of tags.

One of the major objectives of this dolphin tagging expedition to Mexico has been to tag large fish greater than 36" and 20 lbs. When we conceived this expedition last September, it was Don Hammond's idea that tagging and tracking the these dolphin would give us deeper insight to migration patterns. We selected Isla Mujeres in June as the best location since it is known for the big dolphin run this time of year. So far we have not found many big fish. In the past three days of fishing, we have tagged 76 dolphin with 7 fish 35" long or better. The average tagged fish is 20".

Shown above is an estimated 40" bull dolphin we tagged yesterday. You can see the red tag placed on his shoulder. We are back to sea today in a few minutes, fishing the same general location as shown on previous gps/google earth maps. We will update our GIS/GPS dataset and post again later when we are back at the dock.

We were back on the water yesterday after tropical storm Barry moved North into the Gulf. The crew of the Makara tagged 11 dolphin and caught 3 sails and one large wahoo. We fished in deeper water yesterday; you can see the locations on the map above. The red tags are from June 1. The yellow tags are from May 30th. We will continue to explore the shelf and deeper ledges off the coast here. More later. Time to get back on the water.

Wednesday May 30th was our first day of tagging off Isla Mujeres. Seas were 5 ft to 7 ft with a few waves up to 10 ft. Nevertheless we had an excellent day fishing with 28 dolphin tagged. We also caught 4 sailfish and one white marlin. We are fishing the reef edge in water 170-250 ft deep. Water temperature is 83.5 degrees with little variation. There is a strong current moving to the North so we just zigzag back and forth and try to keep the waves from breaking over the transom. Most of the tagged dolphin were less than 20" in length. We did catch two fish over 30 lbs. Getting those fish to the boat with the waves and current was a major effort on 20 lb tackle. We fished for 8 hours, covered 65 miles according to the GPS tracks and only fished a small section of the reef line. Soon as the waves drop out we will move further North and explore some large reef lines plus move out in deeper water around the Aerosmith Bank.

We plan to be here 3 weeks and I can already tell we will not have time to explore every major fishing area. There are pods of whale sharks in the area, large mako sharks on the prowl plus spectacular deep drop opportunities for grouper and snapper. We will also move over to Isla Contoy and Isla Holbox to explore the flats fishing for tarpon, permit and bonefish. We will tag everything we catch to help scientist understand migration patterns and support conservation efforts.

The Yucatan Straits between Mexico and Cuba is the major gateway to the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Stream moving up through the Florida Straits. With the major upwelling zones, the bait fish and predators all congregate here to feed. We will try to document the ecosystem and share it with you on this blog. We will post more pictures soon. Best to all.

Isla Mujeres at last

We made the 334 mile run from Key West to Isla Mujeres arriving on Tuesday, May 29. The Makara left Key West at 1pm on Monday and made the run in under 20 hours. We ran with a 20 kt following wind into the Gulf Stream, where seas were 6-8 feet for much of the way. One lighting storm at 4am was the highlight of the trip. After a half a day to clear customs, immigration and get fishing permits, we are finally ready to begin tagging.

We will explore the fishing grounds today looking for feeding birds from the 170 foot line out to 250 feet. There seas are still pretty rough so we will wait another day to fish the Aerosmith Bank which is 20 miles offshore. Captain Ben from the Guarimba will join us today. He has been fishing here for 3 weeks and knows where the fish have been biting. So pictures, tag reports and stories will appear here later today. Best to all today.

Weather delay - Wind!

We had planned to leave on May 22 from North Palm Beach and head to Key West then across the Gulf of Mexico to Isla Mujeres. Reports from Isla are excellent - chance at a grand slam, 30 lb dolphin everywhere and great weather. But we have 6-8 ft seas here and the conditions are forecasted to last through the weekend. We use the Navy weather model forecast results from www.fnmoc.navy.mil. They provide an unclassified 7 day forecast for the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Shown above is the Gulf forecast for May 26.

We will sit tight, wax and polish the boat and keep watching the weather. Check back - I will try to tell more about the Isla Mujeres ecosystem in the next few days.

Yucatan Straits Tag Expedition

Our next tagging expedition is a trip to the Yucatan Straits where we will be tagging dolphin and white marlin for a month. Don Hammond will be with us again as we attempt to tag 200 dolphin in order to better understand dolphin migration out of the Caribbean up through the Florida Straits to the Eastern Seaboard. No one has ever tagged dolphin this far South (and West).

We plan to leave May 22nd from North Palm Beach Marina and run first to Key West. We will sit there until we have good weather then do an overnight run to Isla Mujeres. Isla is 400 miles SW from Key West so we will leave late afternoon, run ful speed until dark. Then we slow down to 10 knots, turn on the infrared vision system and carefully run until morning. We should be at Isla Mujeres by mid-morning the following day.

We will be reporting the results of our tagging efforts daily along with pictures of other marine life in the area. This is a major feeding ground for whale sharks that feed in the upwelling zone beyond the Arrowsmith Bank. We have gotten reports of pods of 50+ whale sharks on the surface feeding. We will definitely put on our snorkle gear, grab our underwater cameras and jump in and document any encounter.

More later on preparing for a month at sea. Tag and release.

925 miles of fishing

We have completed three successful tagging trips in the past four months on the Makara. The boat logged over 925 miles of fishing and tagged over 169 dolphin and one wahoo, and caught blue marlin, white marlin, wahoo and bonefish as part of our expanding conservation effort. The data above represents our fishing effort on these trips and tells us not only where we caught fish, but where we did not. With our expanding data collection and access to SST, current, tide and weather conditions, we can know look back and analyze where the fish were present and where they were absent. Our next step is to update the Makara electronics software to automatically record much of our research effort and be able to analyze it in near-real time.

The Google image above details when and where we fished, what we caught and what we saw at sea. We track sightings of frigate and tuna birds, bait balls and marine mammals. Our goal is to understand the complete ecosystem in order to add knowledge and understanding. Conservation works best when based on solid science. With expeditions planned for the Yucatan Straits in June and the Southern Caribbean this Fall, we should add valuable data to help manage these fisheries.

Email us if you want to know more or get involved. We can be reached at tag@mvftag.com. We also have a new tag reporting website at www.mvftag.com. It will be updated soon to allow interactive analysis of where the fish are and are not, based on fishing effort and environmental conditions. It's exciting work. Get involved.

125 dolphin tagged in one day!

The crew of the Makara tagged 125 dolphin today. We started out slow on a weed line just outside the Chub Cay marina. But we dialed in the radar and found the birds -- the frigates, the schools of flying fish, and dolphin... everywhere. We've never seen so many dolphin stacked up in the back of the Pocket, 15 miles west of Chub Cay. We were on fish for four solid hours and never moved more than 1/4 mile from the edge. To top it off, Joe released a nice white marlin as we were heading back to the dock.

We have refined our tagging technique to get the fish in the boat, tagged, and back in the water quickly. 125 dolphin in four hours of fishing means we tagged a dolphin every two minutes! It was truly an all-hands-on-deck experience. We broke two tag sticks, rebuilt them, chopped 10 lbs of Humbolt squid wings for chum and were covered in blood and fish goo by the afternoon. I have not had a better day on the water. You should have seen the smiles on everybody when we tagged the 125th dolphin.

The most significant accomplishment today was for conservation -- it is really up to us, the anglers, to protect our fisheries and oceans. To do this, we all must all play a part. Tagging is the first step to building the base of scientific knowledge to better manage the dolphin fishery. In the end, we cannot rely on NGOs, state DNRs or NMFS to protect the fish. We can do it ourselves. Get involved. Make a stand. Do it now.

19 dolphin tagged off Chub Cay 4/7/07

We had our best tagging day of the season today off the North wall of the Pocket, five miles off Chub Cay. We heard there had been a good marlin bite in the previous couple days, so we dropped the riggers right off the edge of the flats. The dolphin were in tight and plentiful. We tagged 19 fish in 3 separate blitzes. We had 3-4 fish hooked up at a time with only two anglers. Captain Steve and Billy took turns tagging with the modified billfish foundation tag stick. We tagged all but one dolphin in the water. It just takes too much time to haul them in the boat and hand tag them. The bite was over by 10AM, so we headed over to Joulters to look for billfish. Had one white marlin come up on the pink squid teaser: Billy quickly dropped a hoo in front of his face but he swam off. We put three dolphin in the box and grilled one for dinner. It had pink flesh and was awesome.

We also attempted to tag more bonefish one day. A front was blowing through with wind and rain. Even with no sun, we saw fish but could not get a hookup. We will try again today to catch and tag more bonefish.

More news tomorrow.

25 dolphin tagged in 4 days!

We tagged 25 dolphin in four days of fishing in Exuma Sound, Bahamas. The largest fished tagged was a 40" bull. We also tagged our first wahoo of the year.

Exuma Sound Dolphin Tagging Trip 3/5-9/07

We fished the Pocket off Chub Cay for two days. Caught one 200 lb blue marlin (Kate + Billy) on a TLD25 spooled with 20 lb test. We were fishing for white marlin when this brute crashed the left teaser then took off with the left short – a naked ballyhoo on 120 lb test leader. Two and a half hours later, Billy leadered the fish then broke him off. According to the GPS tracks, we chased the fish for almost 4 miles before we got him to the boat.

We fished four days out of Highborne Cay targeting dolphin. We caught 47 dolphin averaging 36”, 3 wahoo and jumped off two sailfish. We tagged 25 dolphin plus one 24” wahoo, and for the first time tagged the larger dolphin in the water using a modified billfish tagging stick. Of the dolphin tagged, 17 were female (largest 39”) and 8 were males (largest 40”). We ran into one school of big dolphin and decided to keep some for food and for the marina people. We boated 12 dolphin over 36” in less than 30 minutes. If you ever want to experience true chaos, then fish a dolphin blitz with us.

We also fished for bonefish out of Chub for three days, caught about a dozen fish despite winds over 15 knots. Billy and I attempted to tag one bone but broke the tag stick on the fish’s scales. It is a real challenge to stand in the water holding a fish, measure its length, and tag while the sharks are circling nearby. More field work is needed here to tune our technique and start tagging more fish.

All in all we logged 520 miles in the Makara and over 80 hours of fishing over the 10 days. This does not include the run from North Palm Beach to Chub and back. Captain Steve and Billy did a great job getting us ready for the trip and really showed us what it takes to catch and tag fish.

Andy Quinn finished shooting video for a MVF-Dolphin Tagging video that will be used for educational and conservation work. We are excited about using this video to show others how to tag and demonstrate why tagging is an essential part of the conservation work, involving all anglers.

Welcome

Marine Ventures Foundation is participating in several fish tagging programs ranging from bonefish in the Bahamas to Dolphin (Dorado) in the Caribbean to Bluefin Tuna off the coast of North Carolina. We welcome each of you to the tag program. For more information, go to www.mvftag.com to report a recovered tag. Tight Lines to all. MVF