Tagged barra recaptured after 15 years

[Gad]

Taken from Fishing World`s Newsletter Email 21-10-10

Tagged barra recaptured after 15 years

18 Oct 2010

According to the latest Suntag news bulletin, a barramundi that had been tagged and released 15 years ago in Queensland has been recaptured.

The fish, tagged on January 11 1995 in the Nth Johnstone River was recaptured on February 24 this year - and released once again.

During its 15 year liberation the barra had gron from a length of 505mm to 1175mm (growth 670mm @ 44mm/year) and had travelled a distance of 14km down river.

This represents the longest interval between tagging and recapture on record for a barramundi. The fish was tagged and recaptured by Northern Fisheries staff as part of a monitoring program in the Johnstone River.

For more information on Suntag go to www.info-fish.net.

[Do$tylz]

thats pretty sweet. 15 years and its just over the metre... so is that as straight forward as saying wild barra over 1m are close to 30yr old??

[Genesis]

Been reading up on barras from Monduran / Awoonga and apparently the average age of a m+ barra is over a decade old.

[ellicat]

thats pretty sweet. 15 years and its just over the metre... so is that as straight forward as saying wild barra over 1m are close to 30yr old??

I doubt it. The first 50cm is probably closer to 2 years (food abundance dependent)

[Scope]

On a side note: How good is old mate from the Nothern Fisheries staff's job?

What did you do at work today? - "Went barra fishing in the interests of sustainability" :)