{"id":9854,"date":"2023-04-10T13:11:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/?p=9854"},"modified":"2023-04-10T13:11:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T20:11:08","slug":"tagged-tautog-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/?p=9854","title":{"rendered":"Tagged Tautog"},"content":{"rendered":"

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
\nVolunteer Dr. Ken Neill breaks another record for the Virginia Game Fish Tagging
\nProgram
\nApril 10, 2023
\nVirginia anglers know that wreck fishing for tautog can be pretty rewarding in the spring. One angler
\nwho is very familiar with the joys of tautog fishing is Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program volunteer
\ntagger, Dr. Ken Neill. Since joining the program at its inception in 1995, Dr. Neill has tagged more than
\n3,700 fishes for the program. During this time, he\u2019s contributed a tremendous amount of data and set a
\nfew program records. The most recent record being for the longest days at large (the length of time
\nbetween when a fish is first tagged and released, and when it is last caught).
\nOn March 23, 2013, Neill tagged a 12.5-inch tautog at the Morgan Wreck. This fish was initially
\nrecaptured by another VGFTP volunteer tagger, Mr. Wally Veal, at the Morgan Wreck on January 22,
\n2017, and measured 16 inches at the time. However, it was the most recent recapture that made the fish a
\nrecord breaker. The tautog was last recaptured on March 26, 2023, by Mr. Andrew Homer at Triangle
\nWreck (part of the same complex as Morgan Wreck) and measured 22 inches long. This recapture
\nmarked a new record of 3,655 days at large (more than 10 years!) for a VGFTP-tagged fish.
\nSurprisingly, this was not the first time that a fish tagged by Neill has been a record holder. It was eleven
\nyears ago today when the VGFTP first shared a record-breaking tautog recapture by Dr. Ken Neill. Neill
\nfirst tagged that 11.5-inch tautog on April 10, 2004 off Cape Henry, and that fish was at large for 2,826
\ndays, only 94 days short of 8 years. Neill\u2019s tautog set a new record at the time for days at large which
\nwas broken in 2019 when a cobia (originally tagged by Sheldon Arey at Latimer Shoal in 2009) was
\nrecaptured and released at the York Spit 3,623 days later.
\nVGFTP Principal Investigator Susanna Musick of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) says,
\n\u201cThanks to Dr. Neill and Mr. Homer, we have another outstanding recapture record! These long-term
\nrecaptures help highlight site-fidelity and show how much these fish can grow. We can see the
\nsignificance of this type of habitat for structure-oriented species like tautog. Also, multiple recaptures of
\nthe same fish show the importance of good catch and release handling and tag retention. We\u2019re lucky to
\nhave devoted volunteer taggers like Dr. Neill in our program and are grateful to the anglers who report
\nthese tagged fishes.\u201d
\nThe VGFTP is a cooperative fisheries research program in partnership with recreational anglers, the
\nMarine Advisory Program at VIMS and the Saltwater Tournament at the Virginia Marine Resources
\nCommission (VMRC). The program\u2019s funding is from state saltwater license funds and VIMS. To learn
\nmore visit: www.vims.edu\/vgftp\/ or www.facebook.com\/vagamefishtagging\/<\/p>\n

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  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Volunteer Dr. Ken Neill breaks another record for the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program April 10, 2023 Virginia anglers know that wreck fishing for tautog can be pretty rewarding in the spring. One angler who is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9856,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854\/revisions\/9856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}