Editor’s Note: The Buffalo News reported an angler caught his fifth tagged smallmouth bass on the Niagara River during a tournament.
Tagging studies are usually done to provide biologists with data on catch and harvest, but movement and home range can also be determined from these studies.
Unlike their largemouth cousins who are really homebodies, smallmouth bass are known to be roamers, covering many, many miles a day.
What people sometimes don’t recognize is how easy it is for a bass to travel what seem like incredible distances. Swimming at 3 miles per hour (a leisurely walking pace for you or me), a smallmouth could cover 25 miles in a day’s time. And moving downstream with a good current they could cover much, much more, expending less energy.
The plunge over the Falls is the part of this story that amazes me. Not so much the distance traveled but the impact of the fall, the changes in pressure, the turbulence, the disorientation. Surviving all of that is a testimony to toughness!
