Three anglers were standing in neck-deep water off a beach on the Florida panhandle, being circled by a 12-foot shark—the kind of shark that makes its living attacking swordfish, tuna, and other sharks. It was the next-to-last moment in a beach-fishing adventure none of them will forget, and it ended safely for all of them, including the shark.

On November 12, Travis Lucas and friends Joshua Smith and Ben Brandner caught and released a very large shortfin mako shark from the beach. It’s exceedingly rare to catch a mako from shore; they prefer deep water and the larger prey that live there. This was the first confirmed shore-caught mako at Cape San Blas, about an hour east of Panama City. The shark was released per the rules; harvesting Atlantic mako sharks has been prohibited since 2022 due to overfishing.

Lucas, Smith, and Brandner never expected to catch a mako, let alone one that’s about as big as they get. “We usually just target big species, like bull sharks,” Lucas recalled. A week earlier, they had caught a 12-foot dusky shark and a 13-foot great hammerhead.

The Hometown Sharkers Score Big

The group, “Hometown Sharkers” on their social media, specialize in overnight beach outings.
Lucas was set up with an Okuma Makaira 130 reel spooled with 200-pound Reaction Tackle braid, a 300-pound mono top shot, and a homemade 800-pound leader on a 7-foot Rainshadow rod. The 24/0 circle hook was baited with a chunk of a blacktip shark caught earlier in the day.

Lucas had dropped the bait from a kayak about 1,000 yards offshore at sunset and paddled back to camp. During the evening, “we ended up catching a smaller bull shark on another rod,” he said. After that, it was a calm, cool night on a quiet beach—until it wasn’t.

“We had actually dozed off,” Lucas said. “I woke up to the 130 screaming.” He got into his harness and immediately knew the fish was heavy, perhaps a tiger shark. “It started pulling pretty significant drag pretty effortlessly,” he said.

Ten minutes in, the fish “woke up” and began leaping in the moonlight, “pretty much back-to-back for three or four minutes in one position, and then again in the next,” Lucas said. Eventually, the acrobatics ended. The fish ran toward shore a couple of times, which made life easier for Lucas, and the fight was over in 35 minutes.

As the fish neared the beach, the anglers still didn’t know what they had caught. Maybe a hammerhead, they thought. When it reached the wash, they thought it may have been a great white. When they finally got a light on it, “there was a lot of screaming,” Lucas recalled.

Team Release

“Releasing that fish was one of the most memorable situations I’ve had,” he said. “We realized it was a mako. Josh runs out with the tail rope. I come out with bolt cutters and the hook remover. We get out there, assess the situation, get it unhooked, get the leader off of it. It was about 49 degrees, it was cold.”

Lucas’s wife, Flower, and the other guys’ girlfriends watched and held flashlights from the beach. The group began moving the mako to deeper water to ease its release. “So it’s pitch black outside. We get out past the sandbar, so we know she can swim off. She swims out 10 or 15 feet and comes back at us. She made three full circles around us before thrashing at the surface and then swimming off. It was definitely nerve-wracking.”

The group saw for themselves why makos are sometimes confused with, blue sharks. “They are in every sense of the word ‘blue sharks’,” Lucas said. “When the light hits them they’ll go from deep purple to blue, and it’s a color you’d never expect to see from an animal. It almost seems like it’s a holographic. They’re pretty wild looking. It’s definitely a once in a lifetime fish.”

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Anglers are fundamentally curious people, especially when it comes to the fish they pursue. Sit at a bar with another rabid angler for long enough, and questions such as “I wonder where such-and-such species goes during the winter” or “How far can such-and-such type of fish travel in a given period of time?” will likely pop up. And if you’re enough of a fish geek to have gone to the trouble of looking up this information, you’ve probably come to realize that a lot of what we know about fish behavior comes from the practice of tagging and releasing them.

People have been ­deliberately marking or tagging fish for centuries. In his seminal book The Compleat Angler, published in 1653, Izaak Walton described how anglers would tie ribbons to the tails of Atlantic salmon. Supposedly, this practice provided some of the first empirical evidence that salmon eventually returned to the very stream in which they were spawned. Tagging really gathered steam in the 1800s, when it was primarily focused on other salmon species, but it wasn’t long before anglers and scientists were marking fish or affixing some manner of tags to species ranging from herring to bluefin tuna. By the mid-1940s, the science of tagging fish had become a bona fide method of studying fish.

Over the years, tagging has been employed to address a variety of biological and ecological quandaries, such as delineating nursery areas and estimating growth rates, survival and relative abundance. Tag methodology has also evolved considerably through time. Modern scientists are no longer relegated to the use of the simple conventional tags of days past (although those tags still have utility); now they have an amazing array of tagging technology at their disposal that allows us to learn more than ever.

Conventional Tags

Conventional tags, for the purpose of this article, are passive, nonelectronic tags that are meant to mark individual fish. There are a number of different types of conventional tags available, but all share similar characteristics. Also known as spaghetti tags, they are long and thin, and anchored into the muscle of a fish’s body. Each tag has a unique identifying number and contact information for the tagging program. Conventional tags are passive in the sense that they submit no information on their own. Instead, they require that a fish be caught by an angler or scientist, who tags the fish, records pertinent information (length, weight, location) and then releases the fish back to the wild in the hopes that someone else will catch it and report the tag.

The advantages of conventional tags are several. They are relatively inexpensive to produce, are not reliant on electronics and can be easily deployed by scientists and anglers alike. However, their cost-effectiveness and ease of application come with a few downsides.

First and foremost, conventional tags are fisheries-dependent in the sense that a tagged fish has to be captured again for any data to be collected. That means many tags must be deployed to yield an appreciable amount of information. For example, a study investigating cooperative conventional billfish-tagging ­projects reported an average of less than 3 percent of tagged billfish recaptured and reported.

The amount of data yielded from conventional tags is also somewhat limited. Distance traveled can be inferred only as linear distance from point of capture to point of recapture. (The tags offer no sense of where a fish might have actually wandered between starting point and end point.)

Still, conventional tags have been the methodological workhorses of scientists for decades. They have revealed a wealth of information on fish biology and behavior, and are still a valid and useful tool.

Don Hammond, with the Dolphinfish Research Program, has been running a conventional tagging program since 2002. Dolphinfish (mahi or dorado) are among the world’s most ubiquitous pelagic fishes and are revered by anglers wherever they are found. Hammond reports that some 2,000 anglers fishing on 800 different boats have tagged more than 20,000 dolphin during the nearly 14 years of his project. Of those tagged, 500 (2.5 percent) have been reported by recreational or commercial anglers.

Hammond’s recapture rate is par for the course for pelagic species, but it’s been enough to provide some amazing results. Individual dolphin have swum as far as 152 miles in a 24-hour period, and a fish caught in the Florida Keys swam as far north as Montauk, New York, in less than two months.

As far as superlatives go, the longest time that one of Hammond’s tagged dolphin has been at liberty is 1,470 days, which is pretty damn long for a fish that was thought to have an average life span of well under two years and an estimated maximum of less than four. Hammond has also recorded fish that were caught and recaptured in less than five minutes, which provides good evidence that proper catch-and-release can have minimal effects on fish health.

All this work is going to good use. Scientists and managers at Duke, Texas A&M University, the University of Texas, the University of Puerto Rico and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council are utilizing the data.

Archival Tags

In the past three decades, tags have also entered the electronic age. Archival tags are electronic tags that do pretty much what their name implies. They are sophisticated mini computers that have the ability to collect and store a variety of information at specified time intervals. Data such as location, depth and temperature are collected and stored in tags that are either externally fixed or surgically implanted into fish. Archival tags are a step up from conventional tags in that they have the ability to collect much more information than conventional tags. Movement estimates between point of capture and point of recapture allow for the construction of migration routes from sophisticated geolocation algorithms. In addition, diving behaviors and preferred water temperatures can be obtained with the use of archival tags.

Barbara Block, professor of marine sciences at Stanford University, pioneered work that surgically implanted archival tags in bluefin tuna with the Tag-a-Giant program, launched in 1996. Block’s team developed methodology so bluefin tuna safely caught by recreational anglers were brought aboard boats for tag placement. Her team surgically implants tags within the abdominal cavity of bluefin. The tags collect data every two minutes for up to several years to gain insight on these animals’ large- and fine-scale movements, as well as their physiology.

Archival tags are a step up from conventional tags in that they have the ability to collect much more information than conventional tags.

Block has recorded data on individual tuna for almost four and a half years. To date, her team has deployed more than 1,400 archival tags in Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna, and the data from these tags have profound implications for management. Archival tag data demonstrate that bluefin have the ability to maintain core temperatures at 70 degrees, even in colder ambient water temperatures. Because archival tags are fisheries-dependent, they have also provided estimates of fishing mortality in bluefin. Specifically, a 70 percent recapture rate of tagged Pacific bluefin tuna indicates very high fishing mortality, as did tag recaptures of mature Atlantic bluefin in the Gulf of Mexico. In the latter case, this information was recently used by fishery managers to develop a specific schedule for the pelagic longline fishery in the Gulf of Mexico to protect bluefin spawning. Block’s research with these tags has also helped to estimate mixing rates between eastern and western stocks of Atlantic bluefin, which continues to be an important component of assessment and management.

Satellite Archival Tags

Archival tags have definitely increased the amount of information that scientists can glean from individual tagged fish. However, their biggest downside is that a tagged fish must still be caught and the tag returned for any data to be yielded. Enter the pop-up archival satellite tag, or PSAT. PSATs collect much of the same information that archival tags do, but are not dependent on fish being recaptured and the tag returned. Instead they are externally deployed on fish, using an anchor and tether, and ride along with the fish while collecting depth, temperature and location information. At a predetermined date after the tag is deployed, the tag decouples from the tether and floats to the surface, where it transmits data over the course of several days or several weeks to orbiting satellites. This is truly great “fire-and-forget” technology, but the PSAT’s fundamental drawback is its cost, which can be upward of $4,000 per tag. As such, it can often be difficult for scientists to deploy large numbers of tags.

PSATs have proved to be ideal research tools for large pelagic fishes, such as billfish. Since 2011, the International Game Fish Association and Stanford University have been deploying tags on billfish around the world as part of the IGFA Great Marlin Race. Working with billfish tournaments, recreational anglers sponsor individual tags and deploy them on billfish that are caught and released during tournaments.

In just under five years, the IGMR has deployed 253 PSATs on seven species of billfish in 20 different countries, and has also deployed the first PSATs on both Mediterranean and shortbilled spearfish. Over time, the IGMR has increased the programmed tag duration from 120 to 180 to now 240 days. These long-term deployments have recorded some amazing distances traveled by billfish. Last year, a black marlin tagged off Lizard Island, Australia, swam 5,716 miles in 180 days across the Pacific before the tag popped up off the coast of South America. To date, the program has logged nearly 16,000 miles of horizontal movement.

Repeated tagging in specific locations has provided a rich data set that allows IGMR researchers to not only document where and how far these fish travel, but also how oceanographic conditions affect vertical and horizontal movements. For example, blue marlin tag data from Hawaii have indicated that low sea-surface temperatures, coupled with low dissolved oxygen near the equator in the eastern Pacific (associated with La Niña events), may effectively act as a barrier preventing blue marlin from making ­transequatorial migrations.

SPOT Tags

There is a common misconception that PSATs provide real-time tracking of fish. This is not the case, however, because no information is transmitted to researchers until the tag pops off and floats to the surface, as PSATs cannot transmit data underwater. However, for animals that spend time above the water’s surface, there’s yet another option in the electronic-tag toolbox.

The Guy Harvey Research Institute has been utilizing smart position or temperature transmitting (SPOT) tags to collect data on imperiled shark species across the globe since 2008. SPOT tags have the ability to burst-transmit location data whenever they break the water’s surface, so they are able to provide real-time tracking nearly every time a tagged shark’s fin breaks the surface. SPOTs not only provide frequent position updates, but also superior location accuracy compared with that of PSATs. PSATs rely on sophisticated light-based and/or geomagnetic algorithms to estimate daily location fixes. Daily estimates of longitude from PSATs are fairly robust, but estimates of latitude may have errors of several degrees (each degree of latitude is roughly 69 miles). SPOTs, on the other hand, are able to get much more accurate location fixes, to within 380 yards of the fish’s true location.

GHRI scientists catch sharks with recreational gear, by either trolling or chumming. Sharks are secured next to the boat or brought on board for tag application. Four nylon bolts secure the SPOT tag to the dorsal fin; water is pumped into the shark’s mouth and over the gills during the entire process, which takes only seven to 10 minutes. GHRI has ongoing projects studying the migration patterns of mako sharks in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, and Ocean City, Maryland; tiger sharks in the Bahamas and Grand Cayman; and oceanic whitetip sharks in the Cayman Islands. To date, the program has tagged 92 tiger sharks, 59 mako sharks and 24 oceanic whitetip sharks.

GHRI scientists report that one of their biggest challenges is the number of tagged sharks being harvested, especially mako sharks, by the commercial fishing industry. To date, more than 25 percent of their tagged mako sharks have been killed in the northwestern Atlantic, primarily by commercial longline fishermen. Their work has also documented distinct migration patterns for tiger sharks between Bermuda and the Bahamas, which ultimately helped the government of the Bahamas to enact regulations to protect sharks in its territorial waters.

The Future of Fish Tagging

The science of tagging clearly has a rich history and continues to evolve as it moves into the future. Conventional tags will continue to be utilized for a vast number of species because of their cost-effectiveness and ease of application. Electronic tags, whether archival, PSAT or SPOT, are being manufactured in smaller and smaller sizes. As a result, this technology is becoming available for species of fish that were previously considered too small to carry the larger tags of the day. Enhanced battery life allows the collection of more data over longer periods of time, and anchor and tether systems help prevent premature tag shedding, particularly in the case of PSATs.

Electronic tags of the future will undoubtedly carry more functionality. Additional features such as accelerometers are already being incorporated by at least one PSAT manufacturer, and your guess is as good as mine as to what we might see a decade from now.

About the Author: Jason Schratwieser is ­conservation director for the International Game Fish Association and has been working in the field of fisheries management and conservation for the past 16 years. Jason enjoys virtually all types of fishing, especially shallow-water sight‑fishing with fly and light tackle.

One Heck of a Tagging Story

What are the odds? Angler recaptures same swordfish he tagged three years before.

The post Sport Fish Tagging appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

A new study reports that the mortality rate of shortfin mako sharks due to fishing in the western North Atlantic is higher than previously estimated from catch reports.

The report, published online at phys.org and done using satellite tracking by researchers from Nova Southeastern University’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), the University of Rhode Island and more, suggests the species is experiencing overfishing.

The study shows 30 percent of the 40 satellite-tagged sharks were captured. After modelling the probability that a mako shark would survive a year without being captured — a 72 percent chance — and calculating the fishing mortality rates, researchers determined that the rate at which shortfin makos were being killed in fisheries was actually 10 times higher than previously believed.

The tracks of the tagged mako sharks, including the ones captured, can be viewed online on NSU’s GHRI shark tracking website.

“Traditionally, the data obtained to determine the rate of fishing mortality, a key parameter used to help gauge the health of shark stocks, has depended largely on fishermen self-reporting any mako sharks they may have caught,” said Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., senior author of the study and director of the NSU’s GHRI. “The challenge is that not all fishermen report the same way or some may underreport or even not report their mako shark captures at all, so the these catch data are known to be of questionable reliability.”

The study used near-real-time tracking of mako sharks from satellite tags. Directly seeing how they were captured bypasses the dependency on anglers self-reporting the catches and details. This could be used for other fished species as a time-efficient way to gather useful data “about the levels of fishing survival and mortality,” said Michael Byrne, Ph.D., the paper’s lead author and postdoctoral fellow at NSU’s GHRI when the study was done.

The post Shortfin Mako Shark Fishing Mortality Much Higher Than Thought appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

If that doesn’t satisfy you, check out the Top 9 Underwater Fish videos.

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If this doesn’t get you juiced about fishing, nothing will. If you’ve never caught a mako shark, you might want to give it a try. They jump like no other fish in the sea. Warren Stuckey and friends found out when they hooked up at the 2:00 mark in this video while fishing off Victoria, Australia. Their hollers are genuine and ring true to the spirit of angling, watching in awe as the shark launches into the air time after time in OZ area known as East Gippsland.

No. 9: Mako Madness

Here’s a mako video, which hit YouTube during the Flying Mako Tournament in California. This shark may have been hooked on a fly rod – but it’s behavior is awfully similar to conventional-caught fish. And, yes, the angler’s reactions are priceless.

No. 8: Goliath Rod Breakage

Unlike the makos, the goliath grouper does not go up. Instead, it goes down. Way down. With purpose. These fish are absolute brutes, as Capt. Ben Chancey (and his fishing rod) find out at 1:25. Ben’s hamming it up a bit for the camera, of course, but no doubt this battle was taxing. And what’s funniest, perhaps, are the YouTube comments regarding Ben’s comments!

No. 7: Michael J. Fox Likes Shimano!

Alex P. Keaton, is that you!? Betcha don’t remember this one! It seems that the beloved ’80s wonder boy, Michael J. Fox, did some endorsements for Shimano back in the day. Not sure if this exactly qualifies as an exhilarating fish fight, but we got a few good chuckles out of it and figured you would too.

No. 6: Hammerhead vs. Tarpon in Boca Grande

You’ve probably seen this one before – and, no, it’s not Michael J. Fox! Posted back in 2006, this video has generated well over 8 million hits on YouTube and offers a glimpse of just how aggressive the big hammerhead sharks of Florida’s Boca Grande Pass can be. These fishermen did their best to keep this shark away from a 100-pound tarpon, but in the end, their efforts were futile. Sometimes fishing can give us a front-row seat to the simple, harsh realities of nature.

No. 5: Barracuda Launches into Boat

Speaking of nature, here’s a video that shows that fishing can, in fact, be a full-contact sport! These guys just missed the business end of a high-flying barracuda, one of the toothiest critters in the sea. Others have not been so lucky, however, with more than a few anglers having been hurt by a wild, flying cuda. In any case, the slow-mo portion of this video showing the fish erupting from the water is particularly cool – that cuda had no idea the boat was there!

No. 4: Marlin Jumps in Boat

Neither did this fish – but in this case, young angler, Steven Schultz, wasn’t able to get out of the way. Fishing at the famed Tropic Star Lodge, this 600-pound black marlin Stephen was hooked up to decided it wanted to leave the water and come in the boat. Unfortunately, the big fish sent poor Stephen to the hospital with fairly serious injuries to his head. He’s fine now, thank goodness, but this short clip should remind us all to be careful with big fish near the boat – and always expect the unexpected.

No. 3: Jumping Grander Marlin

Here’s another marlin video from our friends at Nomad Sport Fishing. Behold the amazing sight of a grander marlin in a very calm Coral Sea off Australia. I particularly like the reaction at 0:20 when the fish first is visible next to the boat, then again at 2:20, when the big girl porpoises away. Fishing at it’s best – exhilarating!

No. 2: Shark Eats Redfish!

This clip is also exhilarating! It starts unassuming enough, as a gal named Sarah Brame was pulling in a redfish from a dock on a rainy day in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. But then an unexpected visitor shows up. The reactions from all involved are simply too funny for words.

No. 1: Shark Eats Shark!

And on a final parting note, perhaps one of the funniest fish-fighting videos of all. Yes, the kids are acting silly; yes, they’re being a little immature. Yes, there’s some unnecessary profanity. Yes, it is basically sophomoric. But, admit it, you’re laughing. And that’s something we all need to do a little more — both on the water and off.

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