2008 Tagging Expedition begins...

Greetings to everyone out there. We are on our way for a 3 week tagging expedition in the Bahamas. We are currently at Chub Cay in the Berry Islands. We will be here for two weeks with the first week centered on billfish tagging and tracking using the recently installed Maxsea software on the Makara. The software enables us to track up to 100 sportfishers during a tournament to record both fishing effort and catch data. The Makara is only the 3rd boat in the US to have the tracking software installed. We will publish some early results once we complete the first leg of the tournament. We are bringing an extra research vessel this trip - a new 33 Contender. Powered by triple Yamaha 250s, the boat has 60 mph speed and a range of 400 miles. The boat named the "Snafu" will be used primarily for dolphin tagging and access to remote bonefish flats.


Our second week of the trip will be for bonefish tagging. This is a new project that we did some preliminary work in 2007. We are planning to ramp it up in 2008 and do extensive tagging throughout the Bahamas. More on that on a later post.

Finally our last week of the trip is to tag dolphin. Fisheries biologist Don Hammond will be on board and is bringing some of the new half size pop-up satellite tags for deployment. You will remember we did tag a 58" dolphin during our trip to Isla Mujeres last June. Unfortunately the dolphin was eaten by a large predator (unknown to us) and only survived a few hours after the tagging occurred. We are excited to be working with Don in 2008.

We did fish today in the "Pocket" which is just North of Andros Island. Cold winds from the North shut down the bite. The rest of the crew arrived today so we have a full lineup on board now. We will need it for blue marlin fishing. We will be out early tomorrow morning so look for a report tomorrow evening. Best to all.