Rockfish Conservation

[Robbo]

Here's an interesting new bulletin from the State of Alaska that highlights a technique for de-gassing deepwater rockfish. I'll definitely be packing an extra rod along on the charter boat next summer to give this a try. Check it out:

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?ad ... nservation

[Nelly]

Great idea!
Just tieing a lead head by the hook bend for the easy, at depth release.
I might even rig a short, busted rod & old clunker reel and with an arbor and chuck a cordless drill for an even quicker retrieval.

[Smalma]

Robbo -
I have seen this approach talked about for a few years and it will certainly return the fish to the depths needed to deflate the air bladder. Would like to see more detailed information on the long term survival of the released fish and how that was measured

Once the bladder is deflated it is unlikely the fish will float back to the surface. However that is only part of the story on whether the fish will survive for the long term. While failing to getting back to the depths is the immediate cause of mortality on most of those released rockfish there are other life threating issues. As you can imagine with such pronounced expansion of the air baldder there can be significant damage to the internal organs of the fish - including such things as tissue tearing and organ "squeezing". Such damage often can be severe enough to cause mortality. In addition there is growing concern that during rapid decompression gases get forced into the blood of the fish (essentially the bends) once those gas bubbles reach the small capillaries of the eye's retina blindness causing damage can occur.

Likely the best advice in the article may to bring the fish quickly to the surface. Especially in fish from moderate depths the tissues surround the air bladder has some strength and will keep the air bladder compressed for a short period before the tissue weakens and tears allowing the bladder to expand. Getting the fish quickly to the surface and on the way back to the depths as quickly as possible (if not exhausted the fish at times will have the strenght to get down on its own) may limit the damage.

I'll be interested to hear what Salmonhawk learned about this issue while on the rockfish committee and what his thoughts might be.

Tight lines
Curt

[t_dub]

had heard about that method but couldn't picture how they did it. thanks for the link. i had pretty good success this year with an upside down, weighted milk crate and 100' of line. took a few minutes to get them released, but never saw any of the rockfish pop back up, plus the milk crate doubled for storing some junk

[Bear]

Curt,
What we learned as members of the rockfish committee is Wayne Palsson thinks any method of release is a waste of time and will result in eventual death. It took us many hours of discussion to get him to even look at several of the methods out there. This is the result of our efforts: http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/rockfish/mortality.html

I personally have used the Alaska method described with an old pipe jig with big barbless hook silver soldered on it for years. The key is to be ready. I have an old but reliable Penn Super Mariner with 50 pound braid and an old rod sawed off just past the first eye reserved for the task. My theory is that doing something is better than nothing and if even 10% survive that is better than doing nothing. There’s not much worse than watching a gull peck the eyes out of a yelloweye stuck on the surface so even if they become crab food instead of bird food it’s a plus. I will admit that occasionally there’s a big jerk part way down presumably a lingcod taking advantage of the situation.

Here’s a purpose built rig http://www.sheltonproducts.com/SFD.html

According to this study some species recover better than with up to an 80% survival rate:
http://www-csgc.ucsd.edu/NEWSROOM/NEWSR ... hDown.html

For me it was very frustrating to put these studies before the WDFW folks and have them discounted as junk science but, to their credit, they finally relented.

Bear

[Smalma]

Bear -
Thanks for chiming in - I knew you guys had discussed the issue a lot and I knew Palsson's position from previous discussions.

I agree that doing something - anything - is better than nothing. I thing that is apparent in all the studies that I have read is that getting the fish back down and de-compressed as quickly as possible is essential to issure any chance of survival. Regardless of the method used to get the fish back down to the depths having it at hand and ready to use is essential. Every minute at the surface significantly reduces the fish's chance of survival.

I was just stressing the getting the fish de-compressed will keep it from floating on the surface (out of sight) but it does nothing to undo the damage all ready done. Once the fish is brought to the surface the only thing that can be done to minimize additional damage is to get the fish back down immediately.

The reality is that even though we can get the mortalities out of sight by returning the fish to the depths a lot of the fish caught at depths will die. The best way to minimize the damage is not to bring the fish to the surface and I think there are some things the angler can do to aid in that goal. I have had some limited success by using barbless hooks and giving a suspected hooked rockfish immediate slack (while the fish is still "fighting" and before brought up any distance. When fishing ling cod I often will not set the hook on the lighter bites (almost always rockfish); instead wait for a good solid take. I agree that this is hard for the angler but I feel confident that I'm able to reduce the numbers of incidental rockfish without too many missed lings.

While I have done very little halibut fishing I wonder if we could not reduce the number of incidential rockfish brought to the surface by using lasrger circle hooks rather than the "J" hooks. It seems to me that halibut are a good candidate for circle hooks.

The bottom line is that many of our fisheries are going to require that we get a handle on rockfish mortalities. The most important step in that process is accepting that we want to reduce that mortaliting.

Tight lines
Curt

[Robbo]

Thanks for posting the link to the Shelton product Bear. That set up looks like the easiest and quickest way to get them back down into the cellar and a quick pop gets them off the needle without too much messing around. I'm either going to order one or perhaps make my own over the winter.

Smalmster is right about some fish being so fubar'd when they hit the surface that no amount of decompression will save them. I see a lot of yelloweye, however, that suffer mild to medium barotrauma and I know they'd make it if we could just get them back down. Incidental catches of yelloweye seem to have gone down drastically with the new halibut regs in SE Alaska, as there's no need to jig rocky structure unless specifically targeting yelloweye and lings.

The China rocks are another one I'd like to experiment with. We constantly catch them when we're targetting sea bass and no matter how shallow the water is they come up bloated. I've had them come up from 30 feet with their bladders hanging out. Ug!

[Todd]

The China rocks are another one I'd like to experiment with. We constantly catch them when we're targetting sea bass and no matter how shallow the water is they come up bloated. I've had them come up from 30 feet with their bladders hanging out. Ug!

Total anecdotal evidence...but off all the Quillies we catch lingcod fishing in the San Juans, it seems that the ones that come up from 40 or 50 feet turn into floaters far more often than the ones that come up from 119.9 feet do...the deeper ones turn tail and boogie far more often.

Weird...can't really think of a good reason why that should be so, but it is, at least by my own very, very un-scientific sampling.

Fish on...

Todd

[Fishnut]

I would like to add some things that most people do not know and I have brought it manies attention that are doing rockfish studies. Please get rid of the weighted upside milk crate method. When you put the milk crate over the fish to force it under the water, it rubs and damages its eyes on the holes of the crates. Water or tide flowing through also can push the fish to the sides and do the same damage.

I made my own hook descender and have been recompressing rockfish for longer than most people knew it could be done. I did give out the shelton Products fish descender to the WDFW commision during one of their meetings. If you are bottomfishing and catch a rockfish, you can normally tell a rockfish from a lingcod. Lingcod keep fighting and after a while rockfish quit.
I use a line counter reel and if you will slow down the retrieval rate really slow on the last 65' you will save these fish. I went through this at a commission meeting with the commission. Shortly after Commissioner Jennings thought that barbless hooks should be used (ocean) to release rockfish and not do damage. I found him during the break and told him the opposite was true. If we are going to save rockfish, barbless hooks would require us to bring the fish up really fast to keep form losing it. This would casue the fish to explode internally. And barbs are not usually an issue to get the hooks out. He thanked me for that.

Two years ago 40 miles offshore I found some large rockpiles. We jigged for lingcod and caught some of the biggest yelloweye that I have ever seen. One was 3' long. We got into several of these fish and slowed it way down near the top of the water. All of these fish we had gotten that day were 15 pounds and bigger. These fish did not have their bladders out of their mouths or in their throats nor were their eyes bulging. But they could not swim back down. They were trying. I got poked up pretty good that day but I managed to get thei mouths open enough to get the barbless hook into their mouths. I have a 5 pound weight on it to take them down. It usually only takes 25-30 feet for them to take off on their own. The 3' yelloweye took 11 pounds to get it back down. I have never had to go deeper than 35-40' for them to take off on their own. These yelloweye were 440'-460' deep and in great shape.

Our 120' line represents a California study that any rockfish released deeper than 120' are considered dead and under 120' has a 50% mortality rate. That is how this number comes about. I was in the meetings when it came about in the ocean. I sent out an email to Alaska as there is supposed to be a deepwater tagging study on yelloweye (400' or deeper from what I was told) rockfish where they lived after returning to the abyss. I hope I can get this so we have something real to work from. I have been discussing methods of rockfish tagging with NOAA. We are kicking around some ideas and plan to do some studies on it.