What's up with all the bottom fish on Possession?

[rick rysemus]

Nelly and others...

Maybe we had some odd luck, or bad since we didn't get any salmon, on Saturday but all we could catch was bottom fish on the bar. This was all in 90 -110 feet near the Tin Shed / East side southern part...
Here's the tally:
1-Seabass...big ass mother too
1-Vermillion...boy guy most likely died. everyone had to see him floating.
2-QuilBacks
1-Lingcod

[Brandon]

Not just you dude. Ive hooked a buttload of rockfish off possesion to. I hate killin those things. I troll a little faster around the bar and instead of keepin my gear a few feet off the bottom i run it 10-15 ft off the bottom and it helps. Anybody seen a hatchery chinook lately. Im begining to forget what they look like. I got lots of pics of nates along the side of my boat if anybody wants to look at those.

[Nelly]

We are seeing more rockfish as well!
I sure cannot tell you why..
Rockfish are so long-lived that it's way too early for the new rockfish protection measures to have taken effect.
When I encounter rockfish, I go to larger gear such as plugs and it seems to reduce the bycatch.

By the way Brandon, you're right.
The clipped chinook fishery has fallen on it's face. We managed two all weekend long and they were not large...

[Smalma]

Nelly -
While you are correct it is far too early to see any changes from the most recent rockfish regulation changes is not for the changes over the last 15 years to be seen.

That was one of the nutty things about the most recent changes. Started seeing small rockfish 8 to 10 years ago and those fish have grown up. In my opinion many species rockfish were well on the way to recovrying at the time of the ESA listing and latest regulation changes. It just takes a long time to see the benefits of those changes. You would expect to see positive results with the fastest growing species first - fish like the coppers. And that is exactly what is being seen. It just folks were in rush to make changes and let the previous managerment paradigm mature. I'll leave the whys of that for another discussion.

So the bottom line is the encountering more rockfsih means there are more rockfish of a size that they are vulunerable to salmon which is a good thing. However we all hate to see them die and we can expect some heat in the near future about those increased encounters.

Tight lines
Curt

[rick rysemus]

Curt,
That sad part was the Vermillion that we were sure wouldn't make it. The other swam back down, hopefully they made it.

Nelly,
I'll remember to up size my gear next time. Thanks for the idea.

[Smalma]

Rick-
I recall WDFW's rcokfish report "The Biology and Assessment of Rockfishes in Puget Sound" (9/2009) call the verimillion rockfish a species recently "invading" Puget Sound (presumely from the ocean). So their presence in the Sound is pretty interesting.

Tight lines
Curt

[Salmonhawk]

As a member that served on the Puget Sound Rockfish Advisory Board it was very disheartening that WDFW ignored all of the evidence that both divers and recretional anglers spoke of and/or presented that showed recovery is underway. Every diver that I have spoken to has told me that there are tons of juvenile rockfish, yelloweye included. We presented evidence of some great recruitment years recently and that was ignored. In the San Juans where we actually have some good rockfish habitat left they are abundant. We do need to provide good artificail throught the rest of the sound to mitigate for damage due to bottom trawling and development that has dumped silt into the sound and covered good habitat.

There were many groups and some with the state that would like recovery to take between 30 and 50 years. I proposed a bottom fishing season during lingcod season and that was shut down. Bottom line is, some are against recreational angling and will use anything they can to shut it down piece by piece.

Keep in mind as well that the NW Straits has removed hundreds if not thousands of acres of derelict nets and that is making a difference as well. Even though many of those benefits will be shown by the juvenile population, the larger ones are no longer getting caught and dying in those nets. Unfortunately, the money for this project has dried up and commercial and tribal nets are still being lost and not reported thanks to our legislature.

Another aspect that is and will help is the 120ft bottomfishing depth restriction. With this GIANT MPA in effect, why is it angain that we can't have a bottom fishing season here in Puget Sound?

It is a very positive thing that we are catching these fish and if they are returned quickly, most will survive just fine.

[Fishnut]

I sat through a two day NOAA Rockfish Workshop. There were some things that I was not aware of. For some reason there was a perfect storm of bottomfish spawn in 2006 of many kinds. Also when they dropped the recreational rockfish catch down to one fish the rockfish seemed to make a strong presence. There are many many rockfish out there in certain places (this is not from the meeting but from Jeff June of NRC) that has the side imaging that shows thousands of rockfish in areas.

But there will be a firestorm coming next when the IPHC did longline sets throught the straits and Puget Sound all of the3 way down to Tacoma. It was for halibut, but they expected to catch some rockfish. Not one rockfish was caught. This data is not available yet until November but that was per IPHC. We all know that halibut don't always occupy the same areas. but they said that when they spread them out they do a grid of an area and it should have gotten into some areas. I have the maps of where they were supposed to be set, but they said it was not neccesarliy where they were set. I am sure this will be ammo for closures. I hope I am wrong.

Another very important thing I learned is that Boccaccio and Canary Rockfish have been tracked moving as much as 200 miles! This is contrary to what we have always thought. The yelloweye stay close to the same area. So who is to say that Boccacio really ever lived here in any numbers. I have only met two people that have caught a boccacio in the Puget Sound.

We have our work cut out for us.