Reporting a Tagged Fish Catch

So you've caught that great-fighting fish, only to get it in and you see that it has a tag in it or an antenna sticking out of it.  Now what do you do?  The Division of Wildlife releases thousands of tagged fish each year to study fish behavior, survival and harvest patterns in public waters of Ohio.  These areas could include Lake Erie, inland lakes or rivers, or the Ohio River.  Some of the tags we place on fish include jaw tags, internal transmitter tags, coded wire tags, and passive transponder (or PIT) tags. The old T-bar anchor, or Floy, tags have generally been phased out, but you may still come across one.  Examples of these types of tags used by the Division of Wildlife are shown below. 

Walleye with a jaw tag	Walleye with a transmitter antenna

 

Injecting a PIT tag into a walleye	Scanning for a PIT tag	T-bar style Floy tag

Use the following guidelines to report your tagged fish catch to the Division of Wildlife:

Fish Species Captured (with tag): ____________________________  Tag Type: ______________

Tag Number (record all lettering and numbers): _________________________________________

Date of Capture: _______________________  Water Depth at Capture: ______________ feet

Location of Capture (as best you can determine/GPS best): ________________________________

Length of the fish:  _____________________ inches or millimeters

Weight of the fish:  _____________________ pounds, ozs; or kilograms to 1 decimal place

Was it kept or released? _________________

Name of person who caught fish:  __________________________________________

Address: ____________________________________________________________

City:  ___________________________  State _______________  Zip  ____________

Phone Number: ___________________  E-mail: _______________________________


You can print or copy and save this information and fill in the blanks for delivery to Division of Wildlife fisheries biologists.  We use the contact information only to verify data in case of questions and to mail information about the history of where and when this fish was tagged to the person who captured and reported it.

This information is highly valuable to us.  If it is a legal-size fish that can be possessed, then you have the option of harvesting it and adding it into your daily bag limit or you can release it alive (still tagged).  Nearly all of our tagged fish are of legal size when tagged and released for study.  We discourage anglers and/or fishing clubs from tagging fish and releasing them in public waters because if done improperly these tagged fish have poorer survival rates and become vectors for viral diseases and fungal and bacterial infections. 

To report your tagged fish information, complete the information above and return it electronically to wildinfo@dnr.state.oh.us or by calling 1-800-WILDLIFE, or by calling or mailing the information to your nearest Division of Wildlife office.  Congratulations on your catch and for helping us study the fishes of Ohio.  Thanks for your help!