pretty cool find

[eSJay]

Not quite as cool as an arrowhead or banded bird, but still pretty cool.
I found this 35 + year old Hoop Net tag this week-end while messing around a spoil pile from the dredged Yazoo River.
Any of you guys have the history on these things? Would be neat if I could trace it back to the commercial fisherman it was issued to.

[stang67]

Can't help with your question, but that is very cool! Congrats.

[Blackduck]

Your definition of messing around must vary greatly from mine. Cool find for sure. Be nice to try and find out who it belongs to.

[Trip]

Guy in my camp has some old hoop net tags from Ark we were discussing a couple weeks ago

[eSJay]

So, I reached out to the MDWFP and requesed some history on the tag, but they couldn't tell me who it was issued to since it was all paper records back then & those are now archived off site or possibly destroyed.
See response below.

Mr. James,
Back in 1981, our agency was called the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Conservation. To this day all commercial fishing equipment is required to be tagged to link that piece of gear to a license holder. Until 2012 we sold commercial fishing equipment tags. Since then commercial fisherman make their own tags which contain their license number. Past license sale and tag number records have been sent for storage to the MS Records Center where they are held for a few years before disposal. So all we can say is that a commercial fisherman bought the tag to put on his/her hoopnet as required by law.
Dennis Riecke
Fisheries