Fish tagging programs are a vital part of a fishery manager's tools for assessing fish populations. Conducted properly, tagging can yield a wealth of information including fish movements, migration patterns, and statistics such as birth rates, mortality rates, and harvest levels. This information can be vital to appropriate management leading to healthier fish stocks. However, improperly conducted tagging programs can lead to tremendous confusion, increased mortality of fish, and erode the support for other programs.
Some states prohibit or highly regulate the tagging of fish because of such concerns.
Therefore, it is imperative that volunteer angler-taggers carefully consider the costs and benefits of tagging before deciding to tag fish. This site is intended to provide a resource for fishery managers, anglers, scientists, and others interested in tagging. By registering your tags, you assist others that recapture your tagged fish to learn the appropriate place to return them. Also, you help fishery managers and other organizations to learn about your programs so that your program can coordinate with others to improve fisheries management. Edit your tagging program's information.