Return them right

[Brewcrafter]

Not sure of the name on the one I have; pretty happy with it, picked it up many years ago at the Hall Show.  Basically a spring loaded lip gripper with a place to clip a weight on the bottom.  Give a good hard tug and the jaws open. - john

[Gfish]

Side note, I was surprised to find-out the slow growth rate of Rockfish species and the age range of mature ones. For example: Black Rockfish up to 50yrs old and reach sexual maturity at 6-8 yrs. Old.

[Keta]

Yelloweye, short raker and others are even older.

[Breadfan]

This is so good to see on my favorite forum! My daughter (I've spoken about her a few times on this site) is taking her PHD in Marine Biology at Florida and it is this program (Return em' Right) that is paying for her education and employees her. She is doing a lot of the statistics and research on this device. Very cool to see it come around with people I've associated with on the forum. She is one of my favorite humans to fish with and she uses a conventional reel, of course, because that's what she saw me fish with. 

[Keta]

:0)

[oldmanjoe]

This is so good to see on my favorite forum! My daughter (I've spoken about her a few times on this site) is taking her PHD in Marine Biology at Florida and it is this program (Return em' Right) that is paying for her education and employees her. She is doing a lot of the statistics and research on this device. Very cool to see it come around with people I've associated with on the forum. She is one of my favorite humans to fish with and she uses a conventional reel, of course, because that's what she saw me fish with. 

I wish to know more about the proper release depths and survival rates .

[Breadfan]

This is so good to see on my favorite forum! My daughter (I've spoken about her a few times on this site) is taking her PHD in Marine Biology at Florida and it is this program (Return em' Right) that is paying for her education and employees her. She is doing a lot of the statistics and research on this device. Very cool to see it come around with people I've associated with on the forum. She is one of my favorite humans to fish with and she uses a conventional reel, of course, because that's what she saw me fish with. 

I wish to know more about the proper release depths and survival rates .

I'll get back to you on the depths. I think I remember 70% on the survival rates, I'll get more info on that too!

[quabbin boy 62]

i've been using a seaqualizer for the last 5 years in fresh water here in new england to release lake trout and landlocked salmon that i catch here at 80- 100', works well off a downrigger also.

[Keta]

I can not remember the survival rate the ODFW came up with but it drops the deeper the fish is caught at.  I do not think it was as high as 70% though.

[Breadfan]

After talking to my daughter a little bit, the 70% is ballpark, as it varies from fish to fish. However, she did say they return them to the depth they caught them in. I'm trying to get some sorta statistics in PDF form but I don't know when I'd get that info. She's in school and she's always burning the candle at both ends.

[akfish]

I was on the Alaska Board of Fisheries when we established to policy requiring people to have decending devices on their boat. I remember a couple things from the studies we considered when making the policy. First, survival depends on the specific species. For example, yelloweye have about a 70% chance of survival if returned to the water very quickly -- less than 2 minutes I believe -- and to the depth they were caught at. Other species, even when handled correctly, have a much lower chance of survival; I believe greenspot rockfish had the lowest survival rate. Second, while there were several studies, none that we saw involved a large number of fish so there was a wide variation in results (the t-scores were horrible). Finally, a concern I had was that too many fishermen would use depending devices to target larger fish; i.e., releasing anything under say 10 or 20 pounds when targeting rougheye and shortrakers, etc. Other things equal, I guess depending devices are a good thing but the main thing they may do is keep our released fish from floating and make us feel better. Personally, I keep all rockfish I catch and simply move if I can't stop catching them while fishing for halibut.