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.
1 comment:
Great job guys! Keep it up.
Post a Comment