Opportunistic Fish Tagging Program with Charter Captains

2020 to Present

Partners: Local charter fishing captains ~40 participating, Destin-Fort Walton Beach Natural Resources Team

Destin-Fort Walton Beach Natural Resources coordinates an opportunistic fish tagging program that equips local charter captains to collect fisheries data on essentially every trip they run. Captains first complete training and are added to a tagging permit, after which they receive tagging kits at no cost. The captain and their crew can tag and release fish encountered in the normal course of a charter, including species or individual fish that are out of season, undersized, or oversized and would otherwise simply be released without any data collected. Approximately 40 charter captains in the Destin-Fort Walton Beach area currently participate.

trained volunteer anglers and fishing guides record a tag number, location and fish length at the time of release, with the data reported via email and shared with any partners interested in the data to improve information on movement, growth, and mortality of fish species. Since its 2020 launch, the Tag Destin-Fort Walton Beach program has grown to 40 trained taggers, and has logged over 800 tagged fish (24 species) and more than 70 reported recaptures with movement to as far away as western Louisiana

For Destin-Fort Walton Beach, the program offers a similar dual benefit. Scientifically, it turns the daily fishing effort of dozens of charter boats into a standing, low-cost data-collection network, generating movement, growth, and release-condition information for species that are difficult and expensive for researchers to sample directly, particularly fish that must be released due to season, size, or bag limits and that would otherwise contribute no data at all. For the charter industry, the program adds a value-add feature to the customer experience: anglers who reel in an out-of-season or off-size fish can still participate in hands-on marine science, walk away with a tag number to follow if their fish is ever recaptured, and leave the trip having contributed directly to Gulf fisheries research rather than simply releasing the fish. The program is managed within Destin-Fort Walton Beach Natural Resources alongside the department’s other research partnerships and collaborative tagging programs.