Mission Accomplished! 14 salmon with transmitters swimming!

[digitroll (ron)]

What a nice day to hold this event with 48 hours notice and 7 boats! Esad / Striper / Wdnr (solo) / Mistress / Reelax / Mike Morin (solo) / Vt Mable (Solo) / My boat / Sully. Great conditions and calm water! 1:00 pm the last two of 14 were brought in for the surgery procedure on the dock! All fished released and swimming. Batteries for 2 years will help with an understanding of where they go as they reach year 2 and 3 fish and where they spawn next Fall! There was 15 on the NY side that were part of the study as well that is completed earlier. Fantastic help from the fishing community! Everyone had a great time helping with this task today! Thank you! Graham Montague was thrilled he finished this project in 1/2 day collecting these Vt side fish!

Having an issue with post image... Photo's later when it's fixed.

[Mistress]

What a great day on the water and a privilege to help Graham and USFWS with their tracking program! Matt B. (Reelax) jumped on my Mistress with me and we found the fish after an hour and a half in 120 FOW and the bite was at 25’. All traditional spoons and colors one would use to target small salmon worked and we managed to bring 5 barely legal fish back to the ramp for Graham to install transponders in. All told we had 9 hits and boated 5 salmon and a 35” northern that took Matt over 7 minutes to get to the boat as it hit a longline that was 220’ back and it wanted no part of human contact.
An excellent day on the water helping out an excellent cause, I’d do it a dozen times a year if USFWS asked!

[digitroll (ron)]

Really nice Northern Matt! Mistress boat and Esad and Mike Morin solo 3/3 did the most damage yesterday in this effort! Very well done! We were 0/4 the first 3 hours and we never had another bite the second 3 hours staying all day around the Bar and the Cow Banks that have been good to us and a few others in the last week. Graham on the rod had one almost to the boat and it unbuttoned. We dropped Graham off at the dock at 10:00 am as some of the livewells were getting stuffed on the radio. This worked out perfect for Graham to set out his stuff on the dock and have people drop off the fish. He sedated groups of 6 fish twice and did the surgery and then the anesthetic wore off and they were good to put back in the water. Then the last 2 fish came in by 1:00 pm and it was completed! Post Image for photos is back up this morning. I have a nice 3 minute video of mostly Graham explaining the process on two interviews made. He is waiting for his superiors to ok it's release. A great example of cooperation amongst our folks and helping these guys meet their objectives!

[Mistress]

Thanks again for the heads up on the study Ron. Will you be posting video of interview with USFWS here?
Below is a video link of second 1/2 of Matt’s battle with the WTF is it fish, kind of cool audio with radio chatter in the background giving you a status report on salmon and ETA back to the dock.
The bigger fish will show up anytime now, look forward to seeing fellow Frostbiters out there!

WTF is it video
https://youtu.be/bl-ucI3QnOE?si=HtEU5Y6R12N4NHzU

[digitroll (ron)]

The video needs approval from Graham's boss and higher up. They just want to be careful of anything being released prematurely to the public. Ie. no surgery video or photos.

We had a similar experience last May in Keelers with doubles on Master angler fish!

[Gecha (Gerry)]

Thanks for sharing this amazing experience.
Looking forward to see how in a year or two where these fish will be and where they travelled during that time.

[digitroll (ron)]

A few people asked how do we identify these fish with transmitters if caught:

Also what color tags are the fish with the transmitters and how are they marked with these tags to the casual observer who catches one?
The transmitters are internal tags, and we did not put an external tag on these fish. We did this because we did not want to add additional stress to the fish during the surgery process and these fish are relatively small to tag with an external tag (the additional tag burden would potentially inhibit their survival/alter their behavior).
Depending on the healing of the incision, an angler may see the incision (but it would be faint). The only way an angler would know if the fish was tagged is if they harvested the fish and found the tag inside the fish. The tag will have a sticker with the fish ID #.

[finsntins]

id like to thank everyone who participated in this operation.thanks ron for clarifying the transmitter situation.im assuming that if someone does catch one of these fish and finds the transmitter,you should call the dec so they can get the transmitter back?im sure some of you are saying whats the chances of catching 1 of 14 fish out of millions in a massive lake???well while mating on ontario a few years ago we boated a short atlantic with a tag,i took down the tag info and released the fish,turned out to be a stocked fish from canada.next year,we boat another atlantic with a tag and i said to the captain,wouldnt it be funny if it was the same fish as last year and sure as sh*t,when i turned in the info,it was!!!!!

[digitroll (ron)]

The odds are extremely in favor of the fish! How many tagged fish at the Winooski and Hatchery brook are tagged each year for the last 3-4 years of lake fish and its extremely rare a tagged fish is caught by anyone! I have only caught 2-3 tagged salmon in 45 years.

[Mistress]

I too have caught a tagged fish, the first in 40 yrs lake fishing and probably only one in my lifetime. I have always tried to do my part to help the fisheries in the past but until I reported the tag I never truly appreciated how much info F&W can get from the tracking programs. The fish I caught was tagged last year in the Missisquoi River and had grown considerably in less than a year. Since then I have been more conscientious about the health of our lake stock and would like to do more if and when asked for future studies.
I did have the report laminated and hangs on the wall in my garage with the Mistress for a keepsake.