This is the last year we will be able to retain yellow eye in my area (still lots around but that's a different story). Was out for a jig yesterday and this one bit. Still open and its my wife's favorite so in the pot it went. Pulled the scale to 18 lbs, not huge but decent as you don't see many over 20 lbs any more. Picked up a decent ling and a couple small halibut as well. This was the first time I used the extra narrow 114H, it was a dream to fish with.
Nice one, Todd —
Looks like a great day, weather wise also.
Best,
Fred
Great work!
John
Nice. Dominick
Nice yelloweye! They are pretty rare down here in California.
Your post inspired me to read up a bit. It seems that the yelloweye is one of the more challenging species for fisheries management. Don't want to get into the politics of it either, but the available science is interesting: https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/cosewic/sr_yelloweye_rockfish_0809_e.pdf (https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/cosewic/sr_yelloweye_rockfish_0809_e.pdf)
Call me crazy, but I love the lowly black rockfish. A great fly rod/light tackle fish, and quite tasty too. I presume that these are plentiful around Port Hardy.
-J
Awesome, nice one!
NICE Rockfish dude! Bout how deep was she? I say she, cause the bio. article said the larger ones were females.
Interesting read J.
Kinda fun to try'n figure out what those bio's. are talkin bout. What do you think a mortality of somethin like "0.02"means? a percent, like 2%?
Nice fish. Your observations are interesting i.e., you don't see the big ones around anymore (spawners) but there are a lot around so should be able to harvest. This is not atypical of a population undergoing a decline i.e., big spawning fish are disappearing. Seems like maybe management is on the right track with this one...
Gfish: I have my best luck on YE from 250 to 300 feet. I have caught them as shallow as 80 feet and well over 400 feet but that 250 to 280 around here is the sweet spot.
Cheers:
Todd
That's a dandy,Todd. Agree with your wife..best eating fish in the N. Pacific..delicious! Shame we can't retain these anymore during fishing trips to Canada, but they are a target species for the commercial fleet.
Has there been any discussion about letting any sportfishing buying into the quota, similar to what I heard was happening for larger halibut on Vancouver Is. this year? Appreciate your view...Greg.
Great catch man ;D
Nice fish, nice reel, Todd. Congratulations!
Those fish put up a heck of a fight for the first few minutes.
We have millions of yelloweye off Washington coast, but it's permanently closed for some unknown reason. Sad to hear of your closure. It seems to be the trend these days
The Yellow Eye in Washington is ALMOST as stupid as the Hood Canal.
Bottom fishing closed due to low dissolved Oxygen. Wait a minute, O2 and populations are fine. Well then, we'll keep the fishery closed to ensure a "reserve population," whatever that means. Oh, that's right, it means the millionaires that live on the Canal think fishing is wrong and don't want to see the low dollar fishing boats out their back window.
Ron
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.
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.
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
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.
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...
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
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.
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