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Tarpon research effort focuses on Boca Grande

Want to know where that tarpon you caught last May will be in December? This fall, information will start trickling in from five Boca Grande tarpon that have been satellite tagged that could change traditional knowledge of the megalops.

Through collaboration with the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and the University of Miami, scientists with the program are on the cutting edge of finding out the habits and off-season locales for many of our favorite part-time residents, Boca Grande’s tarpon.

Richard Hirsch, a fly fisherman from New York who fishes Boca Grande regularly, has helped the tagging program raise $60,000. Through Boca Grande anglers and a raffle and silent auction that was held in February at the Gasparilla Inn & Club, the program is off and running with their five first tags. Each tag costs $6,000 just for the hardware … and that doesn’t include monitoring the tags and putting them on the fish.

“Several of the local guides out here, including my mentor Tommy Locke, asked their well-to-do clients if they would be interested in a presentation about the program,” Hirsch said. “We got a very heartwarming response and received $45,000. The guides get their living from catching fish, and people like me really love to fish, so we’re really in it together as far as finding a way to take care of these fish.

“Some of the support we have received has come from local people, out of town anglers, corporations and fishing gear manufacturers,” Hirsch continued. “But the core response has come from the guides. We have fly fishermen supporting us, bait fishermen, harbor fishermen, traditional pass fishermen … but we have no jiggers supporting us.

“Jason Lynn from Boca Grande Outfitters and the Gasparilla Inn & Club have been a huge help in getting these first five tags out on the fish, and in September we hope to have our first information.”

Hirsch said that waiting until late August or September is making researchers impatient, it is necessary because that is when the tag pops off the tarpon.

When the tags pops off it will float to the surface, and its signal will be picked up by a satellite and downloaded to a University of Miami computer.

“Right now, we haven’t done much scientific work and we have very little satellite data from this area,” Hirsch said. “The problem is that in the Boca Grande area there is probably the one single most intensely located sub-population of tarpon and we know virtually nothing of what they’re doing and where they’re going. We’re looking to find out where they go when they leave here, where they go to feed and where they go to spawn. From that huge group of tarpon that probably come back to the exact same spot every year here, it’s a great place to study and get some sound scientific data. We just have to wait until September to get it, and we only have five tags out there right now.”

Five more tarpon will be tagged then, and the process will continue again. Hirsch said that researchers are hoping to be able to supply tags for up to 50 to 80 fish for at least five years to get unequivocal data.

“We have 10 tags now with the $60,000 we have raised,” Hirsch said. “We have the five that are on Boca Grande tarpon now, and the second five tags are going on sometime in the fall, on new fish, before they leave the area. The tags are designed to pop off in early September, and the first thing we’re looking for is the location of where they spawn so we can protect that area. The tags don’t transmit the data from the fish until they pop off and float to the surface.

“These are our fish, and we want to know what their migration is. If we do this for five years in a row we’ll have a pretty good track as to what they’re doing and then we’ll have the science to make conservation plans.”

Hirsch said he is hoping that the group will be ready to give a community presentation on the island this winter, and that other fundraising parties might be held as well.

“We are trying to raise money, sure, but we’re trying to raise awareness of public fish conservation,” Hirsch said. “The broader the base of awareness, the more secure Boca Grande will be. Tarpon represent the island and we love them.

For more information on the tarpon satellite-tagging program, to make donations or to volunteer, go to tarbone.org or email Hirsch at hirschW68@aol.com.