Tagging trip in Kiribati, Line Island group EEZ, August 2005
And Delivery of Supplies to Research Station on Palmyra Island
Trip purpose: Tuna Tag and Release at TAO buoys
Principal Investigator: Bruno Leroy-Secretariat of the Pacific-New Caledonia
Deploy archival and pop-up tags on bigeye and yellowfin tunas in the vicinity of the TAO buoys situated in Line Islands EEZ, and outside Palmyra Atoll
We employed the following fishing gears:
- Two 400 meters/ 20 hooks vertical longlines with a portable hydraulic pinch hauler. Frozen baits (sardines) .The main line was composed of 3 mm tared red line stored in a big plastic trash can. Branch lines: longline snap, 10 m of 1.8 mm nylon, 10/0 tuna circle hook. A 3 kg weight at the bottom, a polyform float plus a marker pole on top
- 4 handlines
- 2 jigging rods with heavy metal jigs
- 4 trolling rigs (Penn rods and reels 50 and 80 lbs)
A variety of techniques were employed in ordered to catch the tuna for tagging
Handlines using squid or sardines, free diving at buoy locations, vertical long lines, echo sounding around buoys, active reel fishing near buoys.
This tagging project brought useful information for the future.
Most important is to be aware that these anchored TAO buoys are not always synonym of tuna aggregation…local environmental (temporary??) conditions could lead the fish to desert the area. This fact has to be taking in account for any FV charter in future tagging campaigns. Do not base all campaign success on a couple of these buoys unless you get some indication of fish presence prior to the departure (commercial fishing boats in the area, study of the environmental conditions …).
Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll (5.52 N, 162.05W) is the only wet atoll in the tropical Pacific; it rains about 4 meters per year. After being an important US military base during WW2, it now a National Wildlife Refuge and represent a cooperative effort between the Nature Conservancy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
We unloaded about 2 tons of materials for the researchers, students and volunteers staying for a while at Palmyra (11 people at this moment). Main research topics are on sea birds, coconut crabs, sharks, and rat eradication (huge task…)
The stop was utilized top prepare more of the tagging and fishing gears (hand-lines…)
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Free dive at the buoy; no fish except 2 rainbow-runners; took some barnacle samples (stored in the freezer)
Stop engines at 13:20; drift at 1 Knt
We set the 2 lines 1 miles up-current from the buoy at 06:00 and 06:20 pm
A small school of 20-30 spinner dolphins passed near the buoy. Saw a few very small (~20 cm) skj at the buoy.
We started to do handline close to the buoy first with sardines and later with some squids I caught at the boat lights.
Hauled the 2 vertical long lines at 22:00; end at 23:00. The lines have been drifting for about 3 miles. Baits untouched except by some squids.
Saturday 13 Aug
Awake at 03:00am; started fishing 1 mile up from the buoy, drifting.
Chumming with sardines, handlines, jigging with heavy metal jigs and rods.
Stopped at 06:30 with no success, except for some squids….
Lack of fish was obvious; we decided to leave the buoy and to look at some eventual tuna free schools on the way to Christmas Island.
Looked at the flying bridge all day, only spotted a dolphin school (100+) and a 10 Kg SKJ school (we got 2 on the trolling lures).
Sunday 14 Aug (Monday 15th X-mas time)
Arrive at X-mas at 02:00 am; waited for the daylights
Dropped the anchor near the wharf at 08 hours. Phoned to the port and to the Kiribati oil company.
Monday 15 Aug (Tue 16th X-mas time)
We left X-mas at 22:00, course 130 toward the 2 degree S Tao buoy.
Tuesday 16 Aug
At 7:00 am position was 01.02 N and 157.06 W
~8 Knt SE wind, 1 m swell, 50% clouds
Boat course 130 at 8 Knt.
Very interesting sighting of a skj school (2-3 kg fish) following the boat during one hour at 7.5 Knt, acting like dolphin, surfing the wave on the boat side…
We crossed the equator line at 16:30 with another nice sight of a small killer whale school (2 adult males and about 4 or 5 female or sub-adults)
Wednesday 17 Aug
At 7:00 am position was 01.31 S and 155.20 W
~10 Knt SE wind, 1 m swell, 50% clouds
Boat course 110 at 8.5 Knt
At 11:00 am position was 01.55 N and 155.04 W
~15 Knt SE wind, 1 to 2 m swell
Boat course 130 at 7 Knt.
We arrived at the buoy around noon and made a survey until 14:00;
We were trolling lures and caught one dolphin fish at the buoy but didn’t see any fish detection on sonar & eco-sounder. No bird around.
We set the 2 vertical long-lines at 16:30.
The current and sea state didn’t allow us to make any jigging at the buoy so we kept trolling around and caught another mahi mahi but without seeing any fish detection.
Hauled the lines at 19:30; one dolphin fish was caught at the top hook and we saw one oceanic white tip shark swimming around during hauling. The other baited hooked remained untouched.
We left the buoy and headed south, toward the following buoy, anchored by 5 S
Thursday 18 Aug
At 7:00 am position was 03.39 S and 154.56 W
~10 Knt E wind, 1 m swell, 30% clouds
Boat course 180 at 8.5 Knt
We stopped at Malden Island (3.56S/155.00W) around 09:00 am, e. Not much to see on this inhabited and desolated place, which has been spoiled 80 years ago for phosphate (guano) mining.
No water, a closed briny lagoon, very few trees, life should have been really hard for the poor “bird shit” slaves in the past…!
We left the island at 13:00 and made the 60 miles to the 5 S buoy where we arrived at 21:00. Moon was almost full; we made the usual survey around, nothing to see except the scattering layer. I decided that we will set the lines and fish around the buoy in the morning. We stopped the engine and drifted at 1.5 knots in 8 Knt E wind
Friday 19 Aug
Awake at 02:30, we have been drifted for 8 miles; the weather was not so good with 15 Knt ESE wind and 1.5 m waves. It was raining and we headed at 7 Knt to the buoy.
We set the lines at 04:15 and tried to jig at the buoy between 5 and 6:00
We hauled the lines at 06:50, ended at 07:30.
Sardines were untouched. I proposed to do a bit of trolling around but Jonathan said that we had to leave to arrive before the night the next day at the 8 degree S buoy.
We headed south again at 8 Knt in 15-20 Knt ENE wind.
Saturday 20 Aug
We arrived on the position (8S, 155W) at 05:30 but didn’t see the buoy as usual on the radar. Weather is not good at the beginning, 20 Knt wind, and choppy sea but slowly improve with the wind dropping to 10 Knt. But even with the daylights, sonar, binoculars etc… we spent 2 hours looking for the buoy for nothing: it’s not there…
At 7:00 am position was 10.51 S and 153.55 W
~15 Knt SE wind, 1.5 m swell, 10% clouds
Boat course 145 at 8 Knt
Monday 22 Aug
At 7:00 am position was 13 S and 152 W
~12 Knt SE wind, 3 m swell
Boat course 145 at 8 Knt