S. flauidus. There is also a commercial catch of these 

 four species in northern Puget Sound by set net, long- 

 line, troll, and trawl gears, but the commercial catch 

 of rockfish in northern Puget Sound is minor com- 

 pared with the recreational catch (Petersen and 

 DiDonato 1982). 



All four species occur from California to Alaska 

 (Hart 1973). In Washington, copper and quillback 

 rockfish tend to be shallow-water, inlet inhabitants 

 associated with nearshore reefs and rockpiles ( Alver- 

 son et al. 1964; Patten 1973; Hart 1973). Black and 

 yellowtail rockfish, although they are most abundant 

 offshore in the ocean to depths of 400 m, are common 

 in inlets such as Puget Sound where they are usually 

 associated with shorelines or shallow rockpiles (Hart 

 1973). In northern Puget Sound, copper and 

 quillback rockfish are usually caught on the bottom. 

 Black and yellowtail rockfish tend to associate with 

 the bottom, but are often caught well up in the water 

 column, sometimes at the surface. Moulton (1977) 

 observed the depth distribution of these four species 

 in northern Puget Sound by scuba diving. All four 

 species occurred in depths to 30 m, the deepest of 

 Moulton' s dives, although copper, black, and yellow- 

 tail rockfish were rarely seen below 22.5 m. The 

 average depths of the individuals observed by 

 Moulton during the months April- September were 

 about 7.5 m for black and yellowtail rockfish, 12.5 m 

 for copper rockfish, and 22.5 m for quillback rockfish. 

 Moulton indicated that all four species may be dis- 

 tributed somewhat deeper in winter than in 

 summer. 



All Pacific rockfish are live-bearers (Phillips 1964). 

 Those species most sought by commercial and sport 

 fishermen are characterized by relatively long life 

 and slow growth (Phillips 1964; Westrheim and 

 Harling 1975; Beamish 1979; Boehlert 1980; Fraiden- 

 burg 1980). The maturation age (age by which 50% 

 are mature) of yellowtail rockfish off California is 5 yr 

 (Phillips 1964), whereas off Washington it is 8 and 10 

 yr for male and female yellowtail rockfish, respec- 

 tively (Gunderson et al. 1980). Maturation age for 

 both sexes of copper rockfish in Puget Sound is 4 yr 

 (Patten 1 973), 5 and 6 yr for black rockfish males and 

 females, respectively, off central Oregon (McClure 

 1 982), and 5 yr for both sexes of quillback rockfish in 

 Puget Sound (Gowan 1983). 



Relatively few studies on the movements of tagged 

 Pacific rockfish were done. Carlson and Haight 

 (1972) tagged yellowtail rockfish in southeast Alaska 

 to study homing behavior. Coombs (1979) tagged 

 blue rockfish, S. mystinus; yelloweye rockfish, S. 

 ruberrimus; and black rockfish on a reef near Depoe 

 Bay, Oreg., to determine if these species were resi- 



dent or transient on the reef. Gowan (1983) tagged 

 copper, yellowtail, black, and brown, S. auriculatus, 

 rockfish in central Puget Sound (near Seattle) to 

 learn about their movements and harvest rates. The 

 Washington Department of Fisheries tagged black 

 rockfish off the central Washington coast near 

 Westport in 1 98 1 and 1982 to study their movements 

 (B. Culver 1 ). 



Our tagging study, supported by the University of 

 Washington Sea Grant program, was initiated in re- 

 sponse to public concern expressed to the Washington 

 Department of Fisheries that certain heavily fished 

 reefs in northern Puget Sound were becoming 

 depleted of rockfish. Our intent was to determine the 

 extent of the differences in migratory behavior 

 among rockfish species most commonly caught. A 

 species for which there is little migration of 

 individuals once they reach a fishable size could be 

 depleted more easily on popular fishing reefs by 

 overfishing than a species in which the fishable- sized 

 individuals are migratory; therefore, a sedentary 

 species might need more restrictive fishing re- 

 gulations than a migratory one. 



Methods 



Between July 1975 and June 1977, a total of 700 

 rockfish were tagged and released at six popular fish- 

 ing sites in the San Juan Islands (Fig. 1). The tag used 

 is the Floy 2 anchor tag with orange colored vinyl tub- 

 ing (Floy FD67 "spaghetti" tag with #20 tubing). 

 This tag is inserted below the dorsal fin, following the 

 method of Dell (1968). In addition to releasing tagged 

 fish, we also held a lot of rockfish in an aquarium for 2 

 yr to observe tag retention and behavior of tagged 

 fish. This lot consisted of 10 fish that were caught, 

 handled, and tagged similarly to the fish tagged 

 and released. 



Numbers tagged (by species) were 82 copper rock- 

 fish, 342 quillback rockfish, 123 black rockfish, and 

 153 yellowtail rockfish. The method of capture for 

 tagging was by hook- and- line with conventional an- 

 gling techniques. The fish were brought aboard singly 

 and placed in a cradle for hook removal, measuring, 

 and tagging. These activities were completed as 

 quickly and gently as possible, and the fish were 

 released within about 2 min from time of capture. 

 Only fish that appeared lively, were relatively un- 

 injured by the hook, and had no external indications 

 of decompression stress were tagged. We restricted 



■B. Culver, Washington Department of Fisheries, Montesano, WA 

 98563, pers. commun. October 1982. 



Reference to trade names does not imply endorsement by the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 



918 



