20/09/2025
Tag # W54448 was placed in a 18 cm hatchery produced juvenile barramundi on 21 April 2018. The fish was among a number released in Lake Monduran in Queensland that year by a local stocking group as part of the long running Suntag program.
Remarkably this now not-so-little fish was recaptured this week on 16 September at 101 cm length, a growth of 83cm. It was released to be caught again.
The little fish might have changed a lot after 7.4 years in a good paddock but the tag looked almost unchanged - and more importantly perfectly readable.
Suntag in Queensland is the largest volunteer tagging database in the world with 945,000 fish tagged and 73,500 recaptures since 1987. Awarded “Best Angler-Led Data Collection Project” at the World Recreational Fishing Conference in 2023, this has only been made possible through countless thousands of hours by volunteer taggers and of course fish tags from Hallprint that are proven to stand the test of time in a rugged environment.
