{"id":2669,"date":"2022-03-05T20:53:27","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T01:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2022-03-25T17:14:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T21:14:49","slug":"three-year-tagging-study-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/2022\/03\/05\/three-year-tagging-study-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Year Trout Tagging Study To Begin March 26th"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tim Clancy with one of the new Trout Tagging Study signs. (photo by Ulla Vinkman)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
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Please Release all Tagged Trout<\/h2>\n

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By: Tim Clancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you can only remember one thing from this article, please, remember the headline above.\u00a0 Release All Tagged Trout<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s important for the success of this study.<\/p>\n

This project came about as the result of some observations last summer that kept building in importance.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to give a thumbnail sketch here because it\u2019s too involved to give it justice in this format.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get something more detailed on the new website where we want you to report your tagged trout.\u00a0 Hopefully most will be released, but we also need to hear about any fish that are kept, so report those tags also.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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But first, this study is a co-operative effort with The Lake Hopatcong Commission (LHC), The Lake Hopatcong Foundation (LHF) and The Knee Deep Club (KDC).\u00a0 Each group contributing an equal portion to cover the cost of 1,000 brown trout all over 12 inches that will have numbered jaw tags.\u00a0 The study is geared to see if trout will still hold over and is to be conducted over three years.\u00a0 To more easily identify what year the trout were stocked, each year different colored tags will be used.\u00a0 For 2022 we\u2019ll be using blue tags.<\/p>\n

The idea for this came about starting in mid-June of last year.\u00a0 I received a couple of phone calls from good friend Lou Marcucci from his boat.\u00a0 Like myself, Lou is also a former KDC President.\u00a0 He had caught three trout over two mornings while fishing between Omaha Beach and Elba Point.\u00a0 The reason Lou called was that trout in June are somewhat noteworthy.\u00a0 The trout start struggling with the warmer water and become less active and also anglers all start targeting other species like hybrid striped bass, walleye, and large & smallmouth bass.\u00a0 They all turn on as the trout start shutting down.\u00a0 But three trout by one fisherman over two summer mornings is a little unusual.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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It prompted me to call around and I verified eight trout caught by five different anglers over a three day period between June 8th<\/sup>\u201410th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Still nothing extraordinary, we see some trout caught in the summer months most years.\u00a0 All of the trout were described as hearty and fought hard and ranged in size from 12+\u201d to 14\u201d.\u00a0 But the thing that jumped out to me was that six of the eight fish were brown trout.\u00a0 At a glance that would make sense because brown trout are more tolerant of the marginal conditions that exist during the summer months.\u00a0 But since Fish and Wildlife now only raises and stocks rainbow trout and only 400 of the 1,000 trout that KDC had stocked last year were brown trout, that makes those fish reports pretty significant.\u00a0 It means only 4% of the 10,000 plus trout stocked between F&W and KDC last year were brown trout.\u00a0 So when 4% of the trout stocked resulted in 75% of those caught over three days in June, well, that is just extraordinary. \u00a0\u00a0KDC stocked trout are always 12\u201d or larger, while state stocked trout are significantly smaller. \u00a0I was able to verify a few more summer caught trout, like Ed Mackin\u2019s 3 lb rainbow trout caught during the Striper Contest on July 10th<\/sup>!\u00a0 But the reality is with a lake this size no one has any idea what fish might be caught on any given day. Out of the numerous summer trout, I was able to verify over the summer 60% were browns.\u00a0 One fish that, to me, showed some trout are absolutely holding over was when long-time club member Jerry Suk landed a hearty robust 18\u201d rainbow off of Betrand Island on August 25th<\/sup>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The June and July fish were significant enough that I brought it to the attention of LHC at their August meeting and suggested that they form a committee to examine this.\u00a0 Jerry\u2019s August fish was just one more piece to the puzzle.\u00a0 At around that time I became aware that for the first time ever Princeton Hydro, the firm that does scientific analysis for LHC, \u00a0had conducted their deepwater sampling twice a month in 2021.\u00a0 It showed that the critical thermal stress period for trout, which we had always assumed lasted for several weeks, was likely just a two-week period.\u00a0 At the committee meetings, we first reviewed the scientific literature on brown trout that clearly showed if the fish are of an adequate size they can better withstand that critical summer period that is actually much shorter than we felt when we only had monthly water sampling.\u00a0 Trout require a certain amount of dissolved oxygen and cooler temperatures than all the other fish species that exist in the lake. \u00a0\u00a0When trout are thermally stressed they may start feeding less and burn more energy than they gain and actually lose weight.\u00a0 That same thing can happen to trout in streams.\u00a0 If it\u2019s a prolonged period then the smaller fish will likely succumb because they have no energy reserves to rely on.\u00a0 If the thermal stress period is too long then even the larger trout may not survive unless they find some thermal refuge, such as underwater springs.\u00a0 The point of this study is to document whether trout, if they are of adequate size when stocked, can hold over year over year and grow large on the lake\u2019s abundant herring.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what the ultimate outcome of this study will be.\u00a0 But we need all anglers to participate.\u00a0\u00a0 We need everyone to report any tagged trout they catch and if possible to include a photo of the fish with the tag in its mouth.\u00a0 Each tag will be stamped with a number and year and do your best to report that number without harming the fish.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good idea to wet your hands before handling any fish you hope to release.\u00a0 The most important thing is to release all tagged fish.\u00a0 We understand that trout are good eating but there will be another 10,000+\/- trout stocked by KDC and F & W.\u00a0 One thing we know is that any trout that winds up in a frying pan is not going to hold over.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made the reporting of your catch easy.\u00a0 You can go to LHCtrout.com <\/a> and fill in the form and download a photo, or scan the QR code in this newsletter that will also take you there.\u00a0 Additionally, the QR code will be on the dozens of signs that will be prominently placed around the lake where anglers will see them.\u00a0 Also the KDC website will have a link that will take you there.\u00a0 For tech-challenged people like me there will be paper reporting forms at our weigh stations that can be mailed in.<\/p>\n

What makes this effort different than anything in the past is that KDC has partnered with the two other significant lake-based environmental groups, LHC and LHF.\u00a0 A grant has been applied for, to conduct weekly water quality sampling during the summer to clarify precisely how long that stressful period lasts.\u00a0 Additionally, the grant is seeking funding to identify underwater springs and other trout refuge like some of the streams that empty into the lake.\u00a0 To encourage people to participate, five $100 Visa Gift Cards will be awarded from a random drawing of anglers who report their catches.\u00a0 The prizes will be available for each of the three years of the study and were generously donated by LiveTheLakeNJ.com<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 What we need from you is to C<\/strong>atch, P<\/strong>hoto, R<\/strong>elease and Report<\/u><\/strong> all tagged trout that are caught.\u00a0 More information can be found at LHCtrout.com <\/a><\/strong>
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  Please Release all Tagged Trout   By: Tim Clancy If you can only remember one thing from this article, please, remember the headline above.\u00a0 Release All Tagged Trout.\u00a0 It\u2019s important for the success of this study. This project came about as the result of some observations last summer that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2743,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakehopatcongcommission.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}