Tagged Striped Marlin heads towards the Coral Sea
by NSW DPIRD - Recreational Fisheries 8 Oct 2024 23:12 BST
The satellite tag attached to a Striped Marlin caught by Brian Schofield and the Shockwave crew whilst fishing off Bermagui on 3 March 24 has detached from the fish and is now transmitting its data back to us via satellite. The fish ended up way north of NSW, and a long way offshore - at a location approx. 1000 km east of Fraser Island when the tag released!
Movement modelling showed the fish moved quickly from Bermagui up towards Newcastle tracking in and out of the continental slope and then back into the shelf area before moving offshore by the end of March. In April the Striped Marlin moved south of the Taupo Bank and continued to track east steadily crossing the Lord Howe Seamount Chain and kept moving NE towards Norfolk Island. From there, the marlin headed NW at the end of May and into early June with the tag popping off around 250 km west of the Lord Howe Seamount Chain, approximately 1000 km east of Fraser Island.
It is likely that the mature fish had left its summertime feeding grounds of NSW waters and was heading towards the Coral Sea, which is a recognised wintertime spawning area for Striped Marlin.
The depth profile is consistent with that of other recently tagged Striped Marlin, in that the fish displays yo-yo oscillations, where the fish regularly moves between the surface and deeper water, multiple times per day. The deepest dive this fish recorded was well over 450 m deep!
Despite the deep dives mentioned above, the fish still spent over 70% of its time less than 10m below the surface in water temperatures between 22 and 26 degreesC.
A big thanks to Brian Schofield and the Shockwave crew for successfully tagging the fish and playing an important role in the research!
More info on the aim of the project is given on our website here.
NSW Fisheries is undertaking this project in collaboration with the Australian National Sportfishing Association (NSW) and NSW Game Fishing Association.