Table 2. — Tag and recapture data for four species of rockfish tagged in the San Juan 

 Islands, Wash., during the period July 1975-June 1977. 



female black rockfish off central Oregon (the respec- 

 tive ages by which 50% are mature) averaged about 

 34 and 36 cm, respectively. 



The means and standard deviations of the sac- 

 rificed lots were similar to those in the 1979-80 rec- 

 reational catch, species by species (Table 1). 

 Accordingly, we would conclude that the recreational 

 catch of copper, quillback, and black rockfish con- 

 sists mostly of mature individuals, whereas the 

 yellowtail rockfish catch tends to be immature 

 individuals. 



Tag Recoveries 



Numbers of recoveries by general area of recapture 

 are listed in Table 2. Each of the 1 1 copper rockfish 

 recoveries was recaptured at its release site, which 

 we define as the area within 300 m of the exact point 

 of release, according to our knowledge of the extent 

 of each fishing reef and judgment of the accuracy of 

 geographical specificity by fishermen who returned 

 tags. All tagging sites are well-known fishing areas 

 with ready geographic reference points. Length of 

 time between date of tagging and date of recapture 

 for copper rockfish varied from 2 to 1,844 d, averag- 

 ing 614 d. 



Ten of 1 1 quillback rockfish recoveries were at the 

 release sites; the other recovery was caught about 2.8 

 km from the release point. The latter fish was initially 

 caught over a shallow reef, but released into much 

 deeper water as the boat drifted off the reef. A fish so 

 released may find it difficult to navigate back to its 

 "homesite" as was postulated similarly for yellowtail 

 rockfish in Carlson and Haight's (1972) homesite 

 study. Length of time between tagging and recapture 

 of quillback rockfish ranged from 31 to 1,913 d, 

 averaging 457 d. 



Our findings indicate that mature copper and 

 quillback rockfish roam very little. It is possible that 

 they migrate seasonably from the homesites, but this 

 seems unlikely since times of year of recoveries 

 appeared to be random relative to times of year of 

 tagging. Four copper rockfish tagged in the summer 

 (August and September) were recaptured during 

 winter months (January-March); four quillback rock- 

 fish tagged in the summer were recaptured during 

 February and March. 



Mature- sized copper rockfish were tagged near 

 Bainbridge Island (central Puget Sound) by the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service from 1975 to 

 1979. All recoveries, 75 of 554 tagged fish, indicated, 

 as did ours, that there was no roaming from the tag- 

 ging site (Gowan 1983). 



An explanation for our higher recapture rate for 

 copper rockfish, 13.4%, compared with that of 

 quillback rockfish, 3.2% (x 2 = 15.9, 1 df,P< 0.01), is 

 that copper rockfish tend to occupy shallower waters 

 than quillback rockfish and are therefore more sus- 

 ceptible to scuba divers and anglers, who fish in 

 depths of 20 m or less primarily for rockfish. 



Of 8 recoveries from 123 black rockfish tagged, 5 

 were recaptured at their release sites and 3 were 

 recaptured off the Washington coast between 

 Willapa Harbor ('6 60 km from the release site) and 

 the Columbia River mouth (400 km). The time be- 

 tween release and recapture ranged from 8 to 829 d 

 for black rockfish recaptured at their release sites 

 and from 703 to 2,207 d for those recaptured 

 offshore. 



The Washington Department of Fisheries tagged a 

 total of 6,913 adult black rockfish near Westport, 

 Wash., in the summer of 1981 and spring of 1982. Of 

 77 recoveries to date, 53 were caught near release 

 site, but the remainder migrated southward as far as 



920 



