NOTE Jagielo Movement of Ophiodon elongatus at Neah Bay, Washington 



!I9 



were recovered of which 74% were captured in the area 

 of release, 21% had uncertain recovery location, and 

 5% were recaptured away from Forty Mile Bank (as 

 far as Cape Flattery to the south and Ucluelet-Barkley 

 Sound to the north.) The majority of all recaptures 

 (82%) occurred within a 6-week period following the 

 release because of an intensive trawl fishery for lingcod 

 in the vicinity of tagging on Forty Mile Bank. Forrester 

 (1973) reported the release of 2000 tagged lingcod on 

 the Lennard Island trawling grounds in September of 

 1964; 535 were recovered with known locations of 

 which 92 (17.2%i) moved from the tagging site. Most 

 of the fish recovered away from the tagging site were 

 recaptured on Big Bank (southern La Perouse Bank) 

 to the south. Fish were recaptured from as far as Cape 

 Russell to the north and as far as Cape Flattery to the 

 south. Most recaptures occurred in the summer months 

 of the year following tagging (A.J. Cass, Pac. Biol. Stn., 

 Dep. Fish. Oceans, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, pers. com- 

 mun.). Jack Robinson (Oreg. Dep. Fish. Wildl., New- 

 port, OR, pers. commun.) reported the tagging of 3800 

 lingcod in offshore waters near Newport, Oregon in 

 July of 1978. Within 17 months, approximately 10% 

 of the tagged fish were recovered of which approx- 

 imately 9% were recovered away from the area of tag- 

 ging. Mathews and LaRiviere (1987) reported the 

 results of H. Horton from 522 lingcod tagged off Depot 

 Bay on the central Oregon coast during June 1978- 

 January 1982. Of 19 recaptures reported through 1985, 

 10 had not moved significantly and 9 (47%) had 

 migrated more than 10 km. Of those that migrated, 

 2 went a distance of more than 100 km. 



Chatwin (1956) reported evidence of homing behavior 

 in Strait of Georgia lingcod. Of 14 lingcod captured at 

 Entrance Island and transported 9.7 km (6 miles) to 

 Departure Bay (Hart 1943), 4 were subsequently recap- 

 tured at Entrance Island, and one at Newcastle Island 

 (between Entrance Island and Departure Bay) within 

 2 years of release. Buckley et al. (1984) reported evi- 

 dence of homing behavior in Strait of Juan de Fuca 

 lingcod. Of 187 adult lingcod transferred from the 

 eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca to Pulali Point in Hood 

 Canal in 1978, 9 recoveries all were recaptured at 

 distances >8.1 km from the release site. Of the 9, 

 7 were recaptured northward in the direction of their 

 original capture site. 



My results at Neah Bay show more lingcod migratory 

 behavior than most of the previous studies, but less 

 than that reported in the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca 

 (Mathews and LaRiviere 1987). I found 70 of 363 recap- 

 tures (19%) to be migratory. Of the 70 that migrated, 

 24 (34%) moved in excess of 50 km. Mathews and 

 LaRiviere (1987) reported 74 of 149 recaptures (50%) 

 to be migratory, of which 13 (18'^i) moved over 50 km. 

 The difference in percent migratory could lie due to 



differences in exploitation rates. The Neah Bay tag- 

 ging was conducted in March and April, and most tags 

 were recaptured in the spring and summer months 

 immediately following tagging. Most of the tags came 

 from the intense sportfishery operating in the vicinity 

 of Neah Bay, which may have removed potential mi- 

 grants. Most of those that moved over 50 km escaped 

 the sportfisheries and were recaptured on trawl 

 gi'ounds offshore. In the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca, 

 tagging was conducted through May and most of the 

 recaptures occurred the year following tagging by 

 Canadian trawlers on Constance Bank (Mathews and 

 LaRiviere 1987). These fish were probably not subject 

 to the same recreational fishing pressure in the vicinity 

 of tagging, and have had a greater opportunity to mi- 

 grate. The difference in the relative proportion of fish 

 moving > 50 km could be due to the distances from re- 

 lease sites to trawling sites; Constance bank is 18 km 

 west of Middle Bank, where much of the eastern Juan 

 de Fuca tagging occurred, while most of the coastal 

 trawling occurs over 50 km from the Neah Bay study 

 area. 



The predominance of male fish tagged at Neah Bay 

 can be explained by the different bathymetric distribu- 

 tion of the two sexes. Others have reported that lingcod 

 are distributed by depth according to sex and size; 

 larger fish (mainly females) inhabit deep banks or reefs, 

 while smaller fish (typically males) inhabit the shallower 

 reefs nearshore (Chatwin 1956, Forrester 1973, Miller 

 and Geibel 1973, Cass et al. 1984). Mathews and 

 LaRiviere (1987) noted a similarly skewed sex ratio for 

 fish tagged nearshore in the eastern Strait of Juan de 

 Fuca. 



While the results of this and previous nearshore tag- 

 ging studies give evidence of nearshore to offshore 

 movement, a coherent pattern is not evident and a 

 reliable working model of coastal lingcod migration is 

 not yet available. Migratory recaptures from the pres- 

 ent study were tyj^ically larger at the time of release 

 than nonmigratory fish, suggesting a size threshold for 

 movement; however, Mathews and LaRiviere (1987) 

 failed to show a relationship between size at release 

 and migratory tendency, and Hart (1943) concluded 

 that large lingcod move less than small lingcod and that 

 "some but not more than 5% of lingcod are more or 

 less migratory during each year." Since the tagging 

 at Neah Bay occurred nearshore in a narrow depth 

 range (15-25 m) where the relative abundance of 

 females is low, the effect of sex and size on lingcod 

 movement reported here is likely biased with reference 

 to the population as a whole. This depth-related bias 

 may explain the discrepancies between this and other 

 studies with regard to lingcod movement. 



Some level of female movement from offshore to 

 nearshore areas for spawning is implied by the high 



