Chips4Fish Escapes!

Chips4Fish is a small operation with big ideas, primarily to help your venue keep its fish and defeat those who would steal your fish for personal financial gain or other reward. Backed by years of experience using this technology on other animals, the company offers this invisible security assistance through the implantation of tiny microchips into the fish. The ‘chip’ carries a unique ID number that, through registration on a national database, proves ownership indisputably.

Last November six intrepid (and very wet) people met at Boxmoor Angling Club’s venue at Hemel Hempstead. They were there to learn how to chip fish and Chips4Fish had retained the eminent fishery consultant Bruno Broughton to show everyone ‘how and ‘where’, tell them ‘why’ and advise them ‘when’.

The course lasted about three hours and included a short talk on fish physiology and handling care. Then each attendee got hands-on chipping experience by implanting chips in two or three fish each under Bruno’s watchful eye.

At the end of the course Chips4Fish had trained six fishery management people, from different parts of the country, Yorkshire down to Sussex, in the techniques of safe implantation of microchips in fish. Boxmoor had two of those trained ‘chippers’ and also had a number of their fish microchipped at no charge as a thank-you for hosting the course. And Chips4Fish gained Bruno Broughton as their fishery consultant!

Boxmoor A.C. wanted to chip their fish for management reasons. They can now keep records on particular fish; monitor their condition and rates of growth; record when a particular fish is caught, on what bait, at which peg… and achieve this without the inconvenience and cost of netting all their fish. The Club’s members simply put caught fish into a holding pond; the club’s bailiffs check the pond regularly and chip any fish that are not already tagged.

Many other venues simply want to add a layer of security to try to protect their fish. Apart from supplying the microchipping training and equipment, Chip4Fish produces a small range of brightly-coloured, weatherproof signs stating that the stock is microchipped. This acts as a deterrent to would be thieves, although they may then move on to an unprotected venue down the road for their illicit haul! Yours perhaps!