Big Yelloweye

akfish · September 20, 2018, 03:00:34 PM

I love yelloweye on the table but feel bad every time I catch one. Within about 5 miles of Juneau, they are scarce and probably average less than 2 pounds a piece. Once you travel 15 or 20 miles from Juneau, they are much more common and may average 5 pounds. They are **very** slow growing and very easy to catch when you find them. In most of Alaska, the limit is one per year for non-residents and one per day for residents.

Hardy Boy · September 20, 2018, 03:23:45 PM

A few years ago the limit was three then it dropped to two then it dropped to one and now its closed in most of BC, but still open in a few areas (until the end of Sept.). Not that many years ago the limit was 5 per day. They are still abundant on much of the coast and I know many spots close to home where you can still catch large amounts of decent YE. There is no doubt they were over fished (commercially and rec) but we seem to be seeing some increase in many rockfish species the last few years. Fingers crossed things improve and they open again before my fishing days are done. All rockfish are slow to grow with many species reaching well over 70 years. I have aged china and quill backs (work related) that were over 70 years and many coppers are up there as well, not to mention some of the deep water species like rough eye and short raker that have reached 150 years.

Lee: I received the package. Thank you so much. Looks like I will be descending YE next year so thanks again.

Cheers:

Todd

Swami805 · September 21, 2018, 12:02:29 AM

They were never common down here but get one now and then. Now that we can't fish deeper than 360' it's very uncommon to get one south of point conception. Still see a few out of Morro Bay but you can't keep them.
That's a beauty you got, big for any rockfish.

Gfish · September 24, 2018, 02:28:51 AM

Quote from: Keta on September 20, 2018, 01:17:49 PM
Did your Seaquilizers get there yet Todd?

In my opinion we do not have a problem with yelloweye, we have a problem with data on yelloweye. Having said that I will also say we need to manage a fish that does not reproduce until they are around 10 years old and can get to be over 100 years old conservatively.

X2 that! Gotta be difficult to get good data on fish that deep...

jurelometer · September 24, 2018, 05:03:15 AM

Quote from: Gfish on September 24, 2018, 02:28:51 AM
Quote from: Keta on September 20, 2018, 01:17:49 PM
Did your Seaquilizers get there yet Todd?

In my opinion we do not have a problem with yelloweye, we have a problem with data on yelloweye. Having said that I will also say we need to manage a fish that does not reproduce until they are around 10 years old and can get to be over 100 years old conservatively.

X2 that! Gotta be difficult to get good data on fish that deep...

Todd can probably provide better insight, but from what I read the problem with managing yelloweye in addition to being fairly old before they start reproducing (and even older before the females can carry a lot of eggs) is recruitment and residency. Recruitment (in general terms- the the ability to add more members to the population ) for yelloweye appears to vary substantially based on environmental changes (for example in California the natural variations in the upwelling from season to season). Residency (adults don't move around much) means that if you only measure a well known spot that the fisherman hit, that the decline in adult fish population of will be over-weighted (or vice-versa). So you have to do a lot of careful measurement over a long period of time in a lot of different locations. Almost everyone affected is in favor of maintaining a healthy population, but there is not a lot of trust and a shortage of complete data.

Todd: I would love to hear more about measuring the age of rockfish, I was wondering what a 70 year old China Cod looks like. Externally, are they just a bigger China Cod, or do they show some wear and tear like us humans?

-J

Keta · September 24, 2018, 02:11:05 PM

They are aged by counting the growth rings on their otoliths (earbones).

Rockfish have a pelagic phase and they drift with the currents until they mature and drop to the bottom. They then find suitable habitat and stay on it for the rest of their lives. This is how they repopulate habitat that has been "fished out".

In Oregon if you are on yelloweye habitat you catch a lot of them, if you are 10' off their habitat you catch few, 100' and you catch none. For several years we could not keep canary rockfish and their numbers were high, but no "data" so the ODFW shut down harvest. It took years to convince them to allow us to keep them and they went from 0 to 7 in our bag limits.

Hardy Boy · September 24, 2018, 03:12:03 PM

Keta summed it up. They only have a good recruitment event every few decades or so (depending on the species), hence why they live so long. They release live larvae which drifts in the water column and suffers high mortality. They do internal fertilization so you can sex them externally by examining them. I have taken tens of thousands of otoliths from fish in my years as a research technician, usually the bigger fish of the rockfish species is older, but you can not tell a 70 year old fish from a 45 year old fish just by looking at them and a 100 year old yelloweye may not be bigger than a 75 year old fish.

Cheers:

Todd