Reviving a 90 lb. “Tagged” Giant Trevally (Ulua)

Education and Conservation of our Fish Population  

Luckey Strike Charters has been actively involved with tagging and releasing fish for a long time. During a tournament in Lahaina  in the mid 1980’s, boats that tagged and released Marlin under 150 lb. would receive points or rewards. It was a great incentive for Captains to let the smaller fish go.  

In 1998 Tad had changed his style of fishing from trolling lures to using live or natural baits and a downrigger. Since he was catching so many big fish that are not very good to eat such as Amberjacks, Barracuda, Sharks, and large Trevally that he started tagging these fish as well as Marlin. It wasn’t long before he started catching the same fish with his tags in them! What was really interesting was that he was catching these fish in exactly the same spot at the same time of the year.  One Amberjack he caught seven times in the same spot over a period of four years. (He named him “Pin Cushion” since he accidentally tagged him twice!)    

The tags that we use have a record number and a phone number on them so that if they are recovered again people can send the information to the Department of Aquatic Resources where we send all of our data. They keep a record on the tag number, date caught, size of the fish (length) and the location where it was released. When a fish is recovered they send us a letter letting us know how many days it was “at liberty” (free!), how many inches it grew, and how far it traveled   

We now have over 500 tagged fish out there and have caught close to 100 of the same fish again! Conservation of our resource is paying off with happy customers and extremely happy fish!