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.