Objective
Largemouth Bass Micropterus nigricans are targeted in competitive angling tournaments. Cull tags are a common tournament practice intended to assist anglers in quickly identifying fish by size for “high grading.” Currently, the impacts of cull tags on fish held in typical tournament conditions have not been evaluated thoroughly. This study aimed to quantify the extent and magnitude of injury, reflex impairment, and mortality for Largemouth Bass due to cull tags commonly used in live-release angling tournaments.
Methods
Largemouth Bass were collected via electrofishing, assessed for preexisting injuries, and then outfitted with one of several commercially available cull tags before being placed in a live-well simulation for 6 h. After live-well holding, fish were assessed for reflex action mortality predictors and injury and were then placed in a net-pen for 3 days to assess latent mortality. Reflex impairment was assessed again prior to release.
Result
Tag site injury scores increased after live-well confinement, with stringer-style tags having the highest increase in injury score. Reflexes remained unimpaired after live-well holding and after 3 days of net-pen confinement. No mortalities were observed 3 days after the tournament simulation, indicating that reflexes and mortality are unimpaired by cull tags.
Conclusion
Although our sample sizes were limited (≤10 fish per treatment), stringer-style cull tags appear to cause increased injury rates after simulated tournament live-well holding. Taking a precautionary approach with stringer-style cull tags may help reduce injuries in Largemouth Bass during tournament holding.
INTRODUCTION
Recreational angling tournaments are competitive events in which anglers attempt to catch the heaviest group of fish (usually a maximum of 3–5 individuals) within an allotted amount of time for cash or prizes. During the angling day, anglers are not allowed to hold more than 3–5 fish at any time, but they are able to “trade up” or “high grade,” releasing smaller fish replacing them with larger ones, a process known as “culling.” These events have grown in popularity, with estimates showing over 40,000 tournaments targeting black bass Micropterus spp. in the southeastern United States alone (Driscoll et al. 2012). Due to the popularity of tournaments and the numbers of fish that can be captured across these events (Driscoll et al. 2012), guidelines have been implemented in an attempt to minimize the impact of tournaments on fish and fish populations, such as the use of live-release boats, wet weigh-ins to limit air exposure (Suski et al. 2004), and penalties for dead fish at the weigh-in (Weathers and Newman 1997; Wilde et al. 2002). Understanding stressors fish encounter during the tournament process is important for sport fish conservation efforts.
Cull tags are a common practice in bass angling tournaments and aim to decrease fish handling time when anglers trade up their catch. Cull tags make the size of the fish apparent through the color or labels on the tag, allowing the angler to quickly release smaller fish in favor of a larger fish. Cull tags come in several forms, including stringer-style puncture tags, nonpuncture clip tags, and tail lassos, all in different colors and materials. These different cull tags have the potential to induce different physical and physiological impacts on fish, but little work has been done on this topic to date. The physiological effects of cull tags (i.e., blood glucose, blood lactate, plasma cortisol, and osmolality) have previously been evaluated in Largemouth Bass held individually for 2 h during tournament simulations, with results showing increased cortisol with tail lasso cull tags and elevated blood lactate with plastic clip cull tags (Chong et al. 2021). However, anglers typically hold multiple fish in a live well simultaneously, which may further impact fish due to restricted movement, oxygen demand, and the accumulation of waste products (Cooke et al. 2002; Siepker et al. 2007), and the duration of fish holding in a tournament can last between 4 and 8 h, with fish potentially being disturbed multiple times during this period. As such, there is a lack of information on how cull tags can impact Largemouth Bass under typical tournament conditions, precluding us from making informed management decisions about the use of these tags.
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