Southeast Alaskans will be able to take home yelloweye rockfish again, after the Alaska Board of Fisheries voted to reopen the shuttered sport fishery last Friday. The board is currently wrapping up its 13-day regulatory meeting on Southeast Alaska fisheries in Ketchikan.
There are seven species of demersal shelf rockfish in Southeast Alaska. “Demersal shelf” means that they live at the rocky bottom along the continental shelf before it drops off into really deep water, further from shore. Those seven species are quillback, China, rosethorn, copper, canary, tiger rockfish, and yelloweye. For many fishermen, yelloweye is the most coveted species. Keenan Sanderson, an Indigenous Food Sovereignty Specialist with the Ketchikan Indian Community, echoed this during the meeting.
“We won’t speak on behalf of all of Indigenous people across Southeast, but in both the Ketchikan and Prince of Wales area, if you were to ask any of us, or most of us, if we had to choose one rockfish to harvest over any others, it would absolutely be yelloweye rockfish,”
Yelloweye can live to well over 100 years old, making them one of the longest-living fish species in the world. Over the last decade, the state Department of Fish & Game observed the regional population of yelloweye to be in decline. Fishing for the coveted rockfish species has been closed since 2020.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that their data now shows the valuable fish is bouncing back. When the proposal to reopen the sport fishery came before the board, the department supported it.
“This is a conservative approach that is leaving some in the water until we figure out really, truly if we have an increasing trend,” said Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang. He echoed that yelloweye populations in the region seem to be bouncing back, but their population data isn’t conclusive for the whole region yet.
The proposal, which passed unanimously, reopens that sport fishery with a bag limit of one. That means Alaska residents can catch and keep one of the big orange fish per day and can only be in possession of two at a time. There are no annual or size limits.
“They’re a really tasty fish, and people haven’t been able to catch them for a while,” said board member Mike Wood. “If they think it’s possible to do that very conservatively and the department can manage that, I’m all for it. I think this proposal, in the spirit of the proposer, is also really, very cautious. Perhaps with extreme caution, it’s time to reopen this fishery to residents.”
The proposal was submitted by a well-known Sitka fisheries advocate named Tad Fujioka. Fujioka died tragically this fall in an apparent bear mauling.
“I just want to acknowledge the proposer and thank him posthumously for all of his hard work and dedication to our fisheries here in Southeast Alaska. Thank you, Mr. Fujioka,” said Board Chair Marit Carlson-Van Dort.
In recent years, non-Alaska residents haven’t been able to harvest any of the seven types of demersal shelf rockfish. The Board also passed a proposal at the meeting to change that, giving visitors a limited window to catch one rockfish, including yelloweye, per year. That passed despite opposition from a number of stakeholders, including the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and the Alaska Longliners Association. There was also some apprehension from board members.
“I would love to provide opportunities for non-residents as well but I just can’t get past the fact that three years ago, we were in dire straits, and now we’re coming back and we’re asking to just completely reopen these things,” Vice Chair Tom Carpenter said prior to the proposal passing.
In the end though, the board was again sufficiently satisfied with how conservative this approach was as well, even if the data on how much non-residents could potentially harvest is limited. The change for non-residents opens up a roughly two-month window for out-of-town sport fishermen to catch the deep-water rockfish, including yelloweye. Under the new regulations, the non-resident anglers have a bag and an annual limit of one fish.
