Game fish

Game fish are fish pursued for sport by recreational anglers. They can be freshwater or saltwater fish. Game fish can be eaten after being caught, though increasingly anglers practice catch and release to improve fish populations. Some game fish are also targeted commercially, particularly salmon.

The species of fish pursued by anglers varies with geography. Some fish are sought for their value as food while others are pursued for their fighting abilities or for the difficulty of pursuit.

Some popular game fish have been transported worldwide. Rainbow trout, for instance, can now be found nearly anywhere that the climate is appropriate, from their original home on the Pacific Coast of North America to the mountains of southern Africa.

As part of the catch and release practice encouraged to promote conservation, tagging programs were created. Some of their goals are to improve the management of fisheries resources and to keep records on abundance, growth rates, age, migrations, and strain identification.

Some well known tagging programs in the United States are the South Carolina Marine Game Fish Tagging Program and the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program. The South Carolina Marine Game Fish Tagging Program began in 1974 and it is now the largest public tagging program in the Southeastern United States. Anglers are trained and then receive a tag kit with tags, applicator, and instructions. When they tag a fish, anglers use a reply postcard they receive in advance to send the information on the tag number, tag date, location, species, and size. This program issues anglers who tag and release 30 or more eligible species within a year a conservation award. When an angler recaptures a tagged fish, he then should report the recapture. If possible the tag number and the mailing address should be reported along with the location and date of the recapture as well with the measurement of the fish. The objective is to provide biologists with the necessary information to determine growth rate through an accurate measurement. The Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program started operations in 1995 and keeps records on recaptured fish since then. This is an annual program that starts in January and it is limited to 160 anglers. Anglers receive training workshops in February and March.

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