Bittersweet

After spending a few fruitless days searching for a muskie to redeploy one of our accelerometers onto, we finally struck gold. A lull in the wind and rain sparked an urge to throw topwater for a bit. As I neared the end of a cast I caught a glimpse of a shadow quickly zeroing in on my Top Raider. In the past I have always taken the lure sub-surface, but have recently seen many fish simply turn away or lose interest. So, I kept the lure on the surface, made one turn and the fish lunged forward and grabbed the bait. When the fish was in the net, I realized that it had a Floy tag. However, it turns out the muskie was a fish that was caught last fall as I cast artificials during our live-bait study; no transmitter was affixed, just a Floy tag.

Fall 2009.

Summer 2010.

Though that was definitely a step forward, we took a step backward when we found one of our tagged fish floating dead. Cause of death is unknown due to the body being badly decomposed. At the time of tagging, however, I do recall it exhibiting some hemorrhaging on its flanks which could have been an indicator of poor health. I removed the transmitter, but now we must forge ahead and find another fish to tag.