b"Muttons Tagged Dan Miller (l) fights mutton in the LWL.The WPBFC has held two Mutton Snap-per Tagging Challenges in the northern portion of the Lake Worth Lagoon in an effort to aid marine scientists with data collection on this important fish.The unique fishing events en-couraged anglers to participate in a citizen-science program help-ing biologists place transmitter tags in juvenile mutton snapper. The Fishing Club is collaborating with the FWCs Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in Tequesta, Palm Beach Countys Department of Envi-ronmental Resources Management and graduate students from FAU. The goal of the project is to gather data on fish utilization and movements in the Lake Worth Lagoon.Mutton snapper are the initial focus of the study because they depend upon estuaries during early stages of their life cycle.There was a ton of effort put into making the Chal-lenge events happen, getting boats and resources ready, planning and coordination. It finally paid off. Whereas we tagged a single fish during the first Challenge, we tagged and released 4 more fish during the second event, commented FAU Ph. D. candidate Brent McKenna.Evidently, it was almost 5 tagged muttons, but the fifth fish was eaten by a barracuda approximately 45 minutes afterpartially digested mutton it was released. As luck would have it, lifetime Fishing Club member Dan Miller who was one of theretrieved from 'cuda stomachtagging challenge participants caught the cuda!Dan kept the fish because it had been eating some of his teams hooked fish.Miraculously, researchers were able to retrieve the electronic transmitter tag!What are the odds? Nearly a dozen muttons were caught during the outing but only 5 ended up being suitable to tag.The transmitter tags cost approximately FWRI researchers place tag (below) &$350, so researchers are very careful on which fish they tag.The sew up (r) mutton. fish must be of the proper length (between 10 and 16), in a healthy condition after the catch and must survive the tagging surgery.The Fishing Clubs charitable foundation provided $100 rewards to those who caught fish that were tagged during the Challenge. On subsequent trips, McKenna was able to tag 15 additional muttons with assistance from WPBFC members. Thank you to all Fishing Club members who have participated in these mutton tagging events.We look forward to tagging more muttons and sharing the data that is collected from this research effort.Tag Detections in LagoonThe Fishing Clubs foundation has played anfish have been at large for over five years since the instrumental role in establishing an acousticday they were tagged.Its always exciting to see array in the northern portion of the Lake Worththese tarpon move, some of these individuals also Lagoon.Twelve underwater receivers that canfrequent northern locations like Virginia Beach and detect fish tagged with electronic transmitterChesapeake Bay, said Dr. Lucas Griffin, BT&T tags make up the array.Since that time research- Tracking Project Lead.Other tagged species that ers from the FWCs Fish and Wildlife Researchwere detected utilizing the lagoon were jack crevalle, Institute in Tequesta have documented somemutton snapper, tiger shark and bull shark.Looking very interesting fish showing up in the array.ahead the Fishing Clubs foundation will further Most notable are four different tarpon taggedcollaborate with local researchers and Palm Beach by the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, two that wereCounty to expand the acoustic array in southern initially tagged in the Florida Keys and two thatportions of the lagoon and assist them with getting were tagged off Amelia Island, FL.A few of themore fish tagged for ongoing scientific studies.t ightl ineSm AgAzine- f All2023 49"