DNR fisheries crews use technology to learn more about Minnesota River’s flathead catfish population

A profitable angler holding one in all these behemoths may surprise the place it’s been over its life, and the Minnesota Division of Pure Assets needs to know more, too, a launch mentioned.

In accordance to the DNR, that quest for more data is what’s behind fisheries specialist Tony Sindt’s annual summertime activity of tagging flathead catfish within the Minnesota River. It’s a long-term undertaking aimed toward serving to DNR fisheries managers higher perceive the expansion and motion of the river’s signature species.

Sindt and his crew sometimes spend a number of weeks every summer season utilizing hoop nets to pattern the channel catfish and flathead catfish population. Whereas the flathead tagging undertaking is on pause throughout the pandemic this yr, it’s going to resume when bodily distancing issues allow, hopefully capturing knowledge that may guarantee a wholesome fish population for generations to come, the discharge mentioned.

Final summer season, fisheries specialists pulled in 107 nets inside a 70-mile stretch of the Minnesota River between Redwood Falls and New Ulm.

The three-person crew sometimes pulls in more than a dozen hoop nets every day, aimed toward documenting the dimensions and size of every fish within the internet. For the flathead catfish, they make use of the additional step of utilizing a shiny yellow scan instrument to decide if the fish has a passive built-in transponder, or P.I.T. tag.

A P.I.T. tag yields a novel alphanumeric code, related to what a veterinarian implants right into a household pet. The tag permits the crew to see if the fish has been beforehand captured and from there, observe the place the fish was final captured and the way a lot it has grown. Flathead catfish captured and not using a P.I.T. tag rapidly get one implanted beneath the pores and skin.

The info supplied with the tag’s assist is significant for higher understanding the Minnesota’s flathead catfish population.

The long-term P.I.T. research started in 2016. Since fisheries crews have been already utilizing hoop nets to pattern the fish population and general well being of the fishery, the added work of documenting and tagging flathead catfish offered a wealth of information for small extra price.

That additional knowledge gleaned from this research might help fisheries managers as they set laws and seasons, and it will probably additionally profit anglers, too.

“The knowledge we learn typically about catfish motion and conduct might help anglers higher perceive the species and enhance their strategies as anglers,” Tony Sindt, a Minnesota River fisheries specialist, mentioned within the launch. “Flathead catfish can reside to be 30 years-old and this helps us monitor their motion and development over their life.”

Sindt famous that the fish also can inform them about the general well being of the fishery.

“Total, fishing within the Minnesota River is nice,” he mentioned. “Regardless of the numerous adjustments which have impacted the river, the fish neighborhood is resilient and wholesome.”

By the numbers:

• 139: Variety of flathead catfish caught in 2019.
• 2016: First yr of P.I.T. tagging flathead catfish on the Minnesota River.
• 6: Variety of P.I.T. tagged flathead catfish recaptured in 2019.
• 520: Channel catfish netted in 2019.
• 107: Nets set within the Minnesota River in 2019.
• 5: Kilos gained by one flathead catfish captured in 2016 and recaptured in 2019.
• 5: Inches of development by one other flathead between 2016 and 2019.
• four: Inches of development between 2018 and 2019 for a younger flathead (From 10 to 14).

For more data on this undertaking, go to www.dnr.state.mn.us.

Supply: Source link