[piano intro] - He's comin'.

- I'm gonna move this rod, let you get over on that corner there.

- Yeah.

Stand right there.

- Time to go to work.

- All right, we got the tag out?

- I got the tag out.

I'm gonna need to hand this off to you so that you can go ahead.

Let me get ready.

Get my stuff out.

- Just give me a minute.

- Okay, bring him to me.

- You ready?

All right, here he comes.

[light instrumental music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [Male Announcer] The "Carolina Outdoor Journal" is brought to you by: - [Female Announcer] "Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine."

- [Male Announcer]: And by EZ Bait & Tackle.

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We fish from fresh to saltwater.

We provide fishing supplies and advice to every type of angler.

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And by contributions from PBS North Carolina viewers like you.

- Hello, welcome to the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

Today's program's gonna be a very educational program because it's about research dolphins.

- That's right, we're researching dolphin.

It's a program that was started several years ago, actually in 2002, by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

It's headed up by Don Hammond, a fisheries biologist from South Carolina who started a separate company last year called Cooperative Science Services.

A company he started to take over the program that South Carolina started, and he's continuing it.

It's a private organization.

The hope is to learn a lot more about the dolphinfish, which is one of our most popular salt water game fish and we don't know that much about 'em.

And so what we're doing today is becoming a part of his program, tagging fish, and there's some real interesting information coming out of the tagging.

- The tagging process, we'll learn more about that in Geartime, I assume.

- Right, we'll go back and then he'll talk more about how he's tagging the fish.

That day we'll be using spaghetti tags, the conventional tag that you see on fish, the most popular form.

But we were also hoping to put satellite transmitters on two fish, but we didn't catch any fish big enough to do that.

But he'll talk about that more in Geartime.

- With all that going on we'll take time to catch up with Donna in the kitchen.

- [Joe] Good recipe from her today.

- We got a lot going on, let's get to it.

Stick around, there's a lot coming your way today on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- Down here we've just slowed down, put lines in the water.

Late June.

We're off the beach here about 15 miles in North Carolina.

Beautiful day.

We've already had two strikes.

We managed to miss both of those dolphin.

Saw one of 'em real well but hope that we'll do a little better here.

So tell me what we're gonna do today with the tags.

Well, that's very encouraging to already have two strikes right off the bat with the dolphin.

And North Carolina's extremely blessed to be able to catch 'em this close in.

For South Carolina we have to travel 30 miles or more before we catch 'em.

A dolphin's a very important species here in North Carolina.

It comprises over half of the blue water catch of a fish caught trolling here in North Carolina.

And the study is to help identify where these fish go, how fast they grow, where they're being caught, where they even occur.

And hopefully today by catching some small ones and putting some small external stringer tags on 'em we're gonna be able to identify their movements.

But furthermore, we're looking to get two big fish so that we can put a very specialized high-tech tag on 'em.

So that we can not only track their movements up and down the coast-- - [Anthony] Oh, there he is, there he is!

- Oh we got one of 'em already, very good.

Had one on.

- Nah, maybe he'll come back.

[laughs] - I love to be interrupted by fish.

But hopefully by putting out these satellite tags, they're actually archival small computers that record water temperature, water pressure, and location of the fish every three to four minutes.

We can actually track a fish up and down in the vertical water column.

And hopefully it's gonna help us to provide better management for the species.

So let's get on the fish and let's start catching.

- Well, Anthony, let's make another pass, see if we can pick that one up we just missed.

- [Anthony] All right, I'll do it.

- Oh yeah, he's comin', he's comin'.

- I'm gonna move this rod, let you get over on that corner there.

Stand right there.

- Time to go to work.

- All right, we got the tag out?

- I got the tag out.

I'm gonna need to hand this off to you so that you can go ahead.

Let me get ready.

Get my stuff out.

Just give me a minute.

Okay, bring him to me.

- You ready?

All right, here he comes.

- Okay, what we're gonna do now, we use a towel over their eyes.

That helps to-- - Calm him down.

- Quiet him down, it calms him down.

And then we just can lay him down, get a measurement, insert the tag right through the dorsal muscle, right into the back like that.

It anchors against the spines.

Quickly just remove the hook just like that, get that out of the way.

And just that quickly, let me get one quick measurement here on him.

We always like to see the amazing growth on these animals.

- [Jim] Fork length.

- Fork length is what we use because the tail can get damaged in the icebox or just in life.

So anyhow, and then we're just ready to release him.

And they don't hang around long.

- Well Don, we just released a small little peanut dolphin, put a typical spaghetti tag, but we're really out here looking for a nice gaffer, about 20 plus pounds to put one of these satellite tags in.

Tell me a little bit about the satellite tag and what's going on with the tagging we're doing here with this.

- Okay, the satellite tag is basically a miniaturized computer and it represents the cutting edge technology on the study of fish.

And this study is the very first of its kind in the world on dolphinfish.

These have been deployed on marlins, tunas, and other large big game, but this is the first study ever in the world using these on dolphin.

And this particular device is developed so that the fish does not have to be recovered to get the data from the fish.

This instrument is a computer that is programmed to release itself from the fish after a predetermined time.

In this case, 30 days.

During this time period, it's recording the temperature, the water depth, and the location of the fish every three to four minutes.

And this gives us the first indication, or first absolute data, on the environment that these dolphin require.

It helps us to define critical habitat.

This device works by releasing from the fish, floating to the surface, and then it transmits as data via the ARGOS satellite system back to the microcomputer's technology lab, who assimilates the data until the tag quits transmitting, and then they electronically transmit that data back to me.

And so the beauty of a fish where you're only getting one to two percent of the fish recovered is that we actually get the data back from one fish.

When we put this tag out, we know we're gonna get that data back.

It's expensive.

$4,000 for the tag, $1,500 for the satellite time, but in a case like this, it is well worth the money.

- They've invaluable.

- There is no other way that we can acquire this information for that low a cost.

So it's a very cutting edge technology that's allowed us to really look into the direct world of the dolphinfish.

- Well hopefully we'll get a nice gaffer and we'll put it in one.

- I plan to.

Let's go for two.

- [Anthony] Okay, guys.

- [Jim] All right, we got one on there, guys.

- [Don] All right, let me get ready.

- [Jim] I see a couple other ones scootin' around, I don't see him now.

Get ready.

That baling rod out.

All right, we're moving along.

Saw this rip with a little grass on it.

That's all it took.

Don, if you could move that rod... - I can.

- Musical chairs.

Let me know when you're ready.

- All right, I'm ready.

- Alrighty, let's bring him in.

A little schoolie, that's all we need.

- [Don] Ah, ideal tagging size here.

- Got a little spunk.

All right, get ready, here he comes.

All right.

- Okay, now what we're gonna do is lay him down here.

Go ahead and get the hook out while I'm right here.

Get that out of the way.

Cover his eyes completely, that helps to keep him quiet.

Now we insert the tag here.

- [Jim] Just all the way through the back-- - Yeah, if you can hold him right there.

Then I can go ahead and just insert it right up in the musculature of the back.

And right down just like that, okay?

- All right.

So you get a measurement here.

He's right in the ruler.

- Okay.

49, same as our last one.

I got him.

What I was trying to do was to get this hand up on him like that.

- Nice little fish.

- Nice little fish.

And he definitely was ready to go back in the water.

- [Anthony] All right, good job, guys.

[instrumental music] - They are so pretty.

They are one of the most colorful fish in the ocean and they have the ability to change colors unbelievably fast.

And it's under neurological control.

And they can go from an excited pattern.

the green-yellows with the neon blues in it, right to a silver body with blue dots, which is I am invisible, you cannot see me phase.

It's their predator avoidance.

And you think about looking through that gin clear water and that silver would disappear in that environment.

And that's one of their ways they help try to avoid predation.

So they are chameleons when it comes to color changes.

When you get him in, Jim will take the rod, and if you'll sling him to me.

- [Jim] Ah, he's a pretty fish.

- All right.

- [Jim] You ready for him?

- Yeah.

He's a little bit bigger than we thought.

Okay, if you can give me a hand here and help hold it down.

- [Anthony] All right, I got the head.

- You got that?

Okay, go ahead and get this tag in him real quick like.

Just like that.

Got a mark with a unique serial number and when she moves up the Eastern Seaboard we'll be able to track her and know exactly where she started out.

And she is 91 centimeters long.

Okay, now we're ready to put her back over the side.

You got the head?

- [Anthony] Yes, sir.

- Okay, let's see if we can go this way.

All right, you ready?

- You ready?

Yep.

There he goes.

- [Don] And there's one more for science.

- [Anthony] All right, great job.

- Great job.

Let's do it again.

- Alrighty.

- Now we'll do the paperwork.

It follows this.

- Don, I see that you have a log book keeping up a record of what we're doing out tagging the fish.

What kind of information are you looking for?

- Well, there's certain pieces of information about the release of the dolphin that we really need to really give us the accurate data that we are looking for in plotting out these fish's movements.

We need to have the length of the fish, the sex of the fish, water temperature 'cause we know very little about the temperatures that they prefer, the exact location, latitude and longitude, of where they're caught, plus we gather information on the sargasso grass, which is the ocean weed that you see floating at the surface out here.

That's a critical element within the life of dolphins.

But science has never really documented it.

So we're trying to gather information on the association and importance of sargassum.

And this allows us to give a better accurate track of the fish as it moves northward along the East Coast of the United States.

Believe it or not, this is the first study that is actually documenting the south to north migration of dolphinfish along the Eastern Seaboard.

Even though, as an angler, you grew up knowing that they migrated from south to north, science has never documented it before.

- Man, that's amazing.

I'm glad to be out here helping do the research for it.

- Well, I appreciate the help.

And it's only through conservation-minded fishermen like yourself that this study is being so successful in providing such great insight into the life of the dolphinfish.

- Well, let's go catch another one.

- Let's get a big one.

- All right.

- [Anthony] Ah, good tagging size here.

All right, you ready for him?

- I'm ready.

Don't lay him down, hold him up.

Okay, I got him.

Okay, Anthony, how 'bout getting the hook out while I go ahead and tag him.

You know, these tags with the unique serial number on these allows us to track these fish.

And that allows us to record such fabulous movements as we've had dolphin that traveled 130 miles from one day to the next.

Let's get a measurement on her.

60 centimeters.

And one has traveled 130 miles from one day to the next, and others that have traveled from Islamorada to Oregon Inlet in just nine days, 900 miles in nine days.

Okay.

- [Anthony] That's amazing.

- Hopefully that one will head toward Ocean City, Maryland.

- Joe, we had a very busy day tagging dolphin, but there was one dolphin that turned out to be very special.

- It really was.

Several weeks after we did the show, we got word from Don that one of the fish that we tagged actually was caught five days later.

We caught these fish out of Beaufort Inlet... Five days later he was caught off Hatteras.

He had traveled 66 miles in five days.

This is some of the information they're picking up on these tags that's just phenomenal.

We'll share with you a little bit later in the show some of these greater distances these fish are traveling, and it's just amazing.

- Let's find out more about the tagging process.

Let's go to Geartime.

[instrumental music] - Well Don, we had a gorgeous day, weather-wise, today.

Late June.

We headed offshore and we caught quite a few dolphin, tagged I guess five or six of 'em.

Just a beautiful day.

And we were using typical offshore tackle today.

Ballyhoo rig, the Chugger Heads, the Jet Heads, et cetera.

We're using a little bit heavier tackle than we normally use catching those little dolphin, mainly because we wanna bring the fish in the boat quickly and not stress 'em and keep 'em healthy so we can get the tags in 'em and get 'em back overboard so they will survive.

But why don't you tell me a little bit about the tags we used and also the tag we were hoping to use with the bigger fish that we didn't a chance to do so.

But tell me about the tags.

- Well, we had a fairly good day today.

I'd always like to tag more but we had a good day, it was very productive, and the tag we used today is the tag that I utilize in the majority of my tagging efforts.

The soft spaghetti tag with a nylon dart.

And the idea is to provide a unique serial number to each fish that's being marked and released out there, so that when it's recovered we can identify individual fish.

We know where it came from, when it was tagged, and we can track how much it grows.

And this is what's used primarily in the migratory studies up and down the Eastern Seaboard and into other areas of the western North Atlantic.

Now the tag we were really hoping for is one that requires a much larger fish which we unfortunately were not privileged to catch today.

This requires a 25 pound dolphin.

This is basically the high-tech end of fishery science.

It's a miniaturized computer that is submersible and that records data every three to four minutes on the water temperature and the depth of the fish and also records the location of the fish.

So we can track him over a long distance.

The beauty of this particular tag is that when it reaches its pre-programmed time period, it releases from the fish, surfaces, and downloads all of its data back to satellite so that it does not necessitate being recovered.

With a price tag of $4,000 and another $1,500 for satellite time, it sounds expensive, but this is the only way that we can acquire this critical information for fisheries management.

- [Jim] It's real dependable and very valuable because you know you're gonna get data from it.

- [Don] That's exactly right.

And you're dealing with a fish like dolphin, we only get one to two percent of the tags out, so it's very important that we have something that will provide data back without having to be recovered.

- [Jim] Well, it's a lot of fun and I intend to keep tagging some fish for your program here coming up the rest of the summer, so.

- Well, you've been a strong supporter in the past years and I just really appreciate all the support that you've provided.

And just good luck in your fishing.

Tag more.

- I appreciate you coming up and fishing with us, thanks a lot.

- No, my privilege, my honor, and I've learned a lot.

I do appreciate it.

- Thank you very much for that valuable information.

Quite an education we've gotten today.

Now let's catch up with Donna.

She's in the kitchen here on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

[instrumental music] - Hi, today in the kitchen we're gonna be making a tomato and fish flatbread.

And we're going to be using Anne's gluten-free pizza dough.

You can make this with regular pizza dough too, but if you're gluten-free, this is a great recipe for you.

So we're gonna take our dough, and it's already portioned out into a nice little ball for us, and I'm just gonna put some olive oil on it just to give it a little bit of moisture.

And then we're just going to move it with our hands and press it out until it's about a 12 inch piece.

So you can do that and just keep pressing with it.

You can use a rolling pin, that's what I kinda do.

And I do it on a surface that has been covered with cornmeal.

That'll give it a nice little crunch on the outside too.

So you're gonna press that out.

And once it's pressed out, we're gonna bake this at 400 degrees for about eight to 10 minutes.

You wanna go ahead and kind of parbake it is what they say.

So this is what it kind of looks like when it's done.

And they're gonna be rustic looking pizzas so that's kind of more fun too.

Then we're going to take some different colored tomatoes that we have and we're gonna place those onto our dough.

And I like to use different colored tomatoes, I just think it's more fun.

So then we're gonna top it with a little bit of some shredded mozzarella cheese and a little salt.

And on this pizza we're gonna use some leftover whitefish that we have.

So you can use leftover whitefish, you can use leftover scallops, you can use leftover shrimp if you like.

Any kind of seafood that you like.

It's just a little different.

And then we're going to pop this in the oven until the cheese starts to melt.

So we just wanna kinda warm this up a little bit.

So maybe 450 for about five or 10 minutes.

Then once you pull it out, then we're gonna top it with a salad.

So we're going to take our salad greens, and these are just some that you buy at the store already.

Just some beautiful greens.

We're gonna add a little bit of a balsamic to it and a little bit of olive oil.

Give it a little toss.

And then once this comes out, we're gonna top it with our salad greens.

And maybe a few additional colored tomatoes, and you're ready to serve.

Quick and easy.

It's a great meal.

It's all in one, you don't even have to put a side salad to it.

You're ready to go.

Just a nice beverage and you're ready.

So this is what it looks like when it comes out.

You can top it a little bit with some more mozzarella cheese if you'd like.

You can see it's nice and crispy and crunchy and you have all your vegetables and all your meats right there and you're ready to go.

So I hope you enjoy this tomato and fish flatbread and I look forward to seeing you next time here on Simple Cooking.

- Thank you, Donna, for that recipe.

Joe, let's go back and talk about the dolphins.

There's a special story you'd like to share with us today.

- There's many, many reports of tremendous travels over a short amount of time, but one in particular I picked was a fish that was tagged off Islamorada, Florida and was free for 15 days after he was tagged and he ended up off Cape Lookout, which was 702 miles in 15 days.

And that's just a tremendous amount of traveling, I think, in a short amount of time.

But we're learning more about the fish and programs like this, I think, are very valuable to us.

We know how to manage our fish and I think every fish that swims out there needs some type of management to it.

But I wanna thank Don for including us.

He needs more participation from anglers, that's one of the keys to this is the more fish we get tagged, the more information he can learn.

And as we mentioned earlier, we wanted to put the satellite tags in 'em.

It gets more information to him.

And they're expensive, as he said, but again, the information we're getting will help us in the future.

- [John] The research will continue.

- Absolutely.

- For Joe Albea, I'm John Moore.

Thanks for joining us today on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- [Male Announcer]: Make sure to visit our website for more information.

The Carolina Outdoor Journal is brought to you by: - [Female Announcer]: "Wildlife in North Carolina" magazine.

- [Male Announcer]: And by EZ Bait & Tackle.

Family owned and operated.

We fish from fresh to saltwater.

We provide fishing supplies and advice to every type of angler.

For all your fishing needs, EZ Bait & Tackle.

And by contributions from PBS North Carolina viewers like you.

[light instrumental music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪