Do you know your tags?

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With the Season just around the corner, now is a good time to brush up on your tag knowledge.  The DNR inserts individual numbered tags at the base of the dorsal fin on hatchery (clipped) and wild steelhead that are caught at the Knife and French river fish traps. They insert grey numbered tags are into steelhead at the Knife River trap and yellow numbered tags into steelhead at the French River trap. The DNR uses these individual numbered tags are to gather information on steelhead movement patterns within Lake Superior, occurrence of repeat spawning, age and growth, and trap efficiency.


If you catch a tagged steelhead, leave the tag in the fish and record the number. Report the tag number, along with the date, location, and if the fish was harvested or released to the Lake Superior Fisheries.  With this info you can find when and where the fish was tagged and also the age of the fish.

Remember that unclipped steelhead cannot be harvested in Minnesota waters.

Kamloops are also tagged but the tags used are a bit different than those given to our steelhead. 

The DNR uses unnumbered plastic tags for the Kamloops strain rainbow trout that are captured at the French River fish trap. The color tag used changes each year (table below). These tags quickly identify which fish have already been captured and used in spawning operations at the French River Hatchery.


2007 yellow - 2008 gray - 2009 green - 2010 clear - 2011 blue

Click HERE to go to the online fish tag reporting program.  Thanks for the link NMF!


Comments

NMF said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
6:23 PM
NMF said…
You can also report tags electronically here:


Online Tag Reporting Tool

Sorry folks, my HTML was faulty in my first reply... Regards-NMF
6:26 PM
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