North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

G'day Guys,
This is something I've been pondering for a while. With everybody caught up in the hype of the Million Dollar fish competition, I was a bit relucant to put a bit of a negative spin on it but what the hell.
Does anybody else have concerns regarding the rate at which these barra are getting recaptured? It's great for tourism and all but to me it is raising a bigger question.
Now, its been a little while since I've been involved with active tagging but traditionally fish recapture rates tend to sit around 1-2% on most species. Kings have always had one of the highest recapture rates, at around 4% from memory. This is in large part to a large angler effort, semi residential fish and high survivability. Over the past 3 seasons of MDF we seem to have had a very high recapture of what is essentially a small pool of fish spread over a relatively large area. This season is a case in point. We've had 7 recaptures, in 2months from a pool of 101 fish. This to me seems alarmingly high.
I wrote this off in MDF 1 as it occurred during a poor wet season, which would account for the relative lack of movement from tagged fish. But Season 2 and 3 have both followed the trend of high recapture rates.
I don't want to start debates or arguments, but does anyone have any thoughts on this.

Yes, it is interesting. Barra do survive tagging well though, but I don't know if that is enough to allow for the high recap count.

Maybe there just isn't that many barra around at the moment.

Can't see a reason why fish caught early wouldn't be kept in the freezer until MDF Open Day.

It is a great fishing promotion though, don't think there is a better one out there, and there's still 90+ fish to be caught.

I know from my years running the AFANT tagging program that the recapture rate was consistently around 10%...bear in mind the government used AFANT's data to calculate possible recaptures for season 1 so the sponsors knew roughly how much they would have to pay out......so the amount of fish being caught in the competition are pretty much spot on average and we can expect to see at least three more caught

Sorry Tristan,
Re reading my post it probably reads a bit like a crack at MDF. I was more thinking that MDF has just highlighted this high catch rate rather then contributed to it.

There would also be a huge amount of effort out there

No worries Dave, its a legitimate concern and Matt is also right the amount of effort contributes to the high recapture rate as well. I'm actually surprised more fish haven't been pulled out of the Harbour yet

I previously question the recapture rate because 10% seems high to me. I wasn't aware that was in line with the AFANT recapture rate, thank you Tristan.

In my own unprofessional opinion, I feel that the masses are swarming this season, in an effort to catch the Tagged ones. Pretty much guaranteed to see one in every Monday paper... I tend not to read it on Mondays... ha ha!

They're also released in high-effort areas. Heaps of other tagged fish are in pretty remote places

Do they underfeed a few before their release? Send a few out hungry in high use areas so they are more likely to be feeding aggressively and be caught ? Could that be a reason why a lot are caught quickly in the first few weeks?

I am sure the organisers want a good few caught, which would encourage more people to fish and more people to come to the NT, to generate Tourism income which is the aim of the comp, increase Tourist numbers in the off season.

The interest would be much less if only 1-2 were caught, but with the capture rates as high as they are , I feel like I have a chance to catch one.

I fished the harbour 5-6 times in the last 2 weeks, normally I would just go once or twice or do more remote trips, but the comp is keeping me in places like the harbour were more have probably been released.

I have heard all sorts of theories on how the fish are tagged and released but none really
substantiated so what really happens.
Do blokes come up from QLD and catch and tag what they don’t get out of the 101 required are tank Barra tagged and released ??????????

Tristan you Say 10% of Taged fish are recaptured, what percentage are recaptured within 1 Month, or 2 Months.
If the 10% is over all, with some fish being recaptured over 3 or 4 Years, then that percentage figure is not relevant.

After the First Year, we were informed the MDF was a 104 or 106 cm Fish released down the Daly. Last Year, I don't recall that information being stated.

The 1 thing I find hardest to accept, is how some People have managed to Catch 2 Fish, or 3 in 1 Family.

Sometimes some people have more fishing time than others. S'pose the more you've got a line in the water, your chances are better than someone elses, who doesn't have a line in. I've been going land-based every 2-3 days, and every sat n sunday, lost a few Barra too.

N for sure, the Million $ Pishy be a horse somewhere, n probably released at the NT-WA border 2.5 months ago. ha ha!

N for sure, the Million $ Pishy be a horse somewhere, n probably released at the NT-WA border 2.5 months ago. ha ha!