UNIT 15 

 PACIFIC COAST GROUNDFISH FISHERY 



assessments appears low, given the amount oi avail- 

 able information. For other species of rockfish, no 

 estimates of abmidance and exploitation rates are 

 available. 



A recent lingcod assessment in the northern 

 area indicated that harvest over the past decade 

 has equaled or exceeded the overfishing level since 

 1990. The stock has continued to decline due to 

 the high exploitation rates and steadilv declining 

 recruitment since 1980. Among the other flatfish 

 species, English sole appears to be at a high level 

 of abundance due to large recent recruitments, and 

 Petrale sole is near its target level of abundance 

 and yield. 



Recreational Fisheries 



The non-salmon recreational fishery harvests 

 a diverse collection of nearshore fishes, including 

 many species of groundfish managed by the Pa- 

 cific Fishery Management Council. Coasrwide 

 sampling of the recreational fishery resumed in 

 1993 after a 3-year break. Valuation of the recre- 

 ational fishery for groundfish is important, but 

 more difficult than estimating the magnitude of 

 the catch. In some cases, proxy values from the 

 recreational fishery tor salmon have been used in 

 estimating the economic impact of changing regu- 

 lations for the recreational groundfish fishery. 



Among the groundfish species, the recreational 

 component is particularly important for lingcod 

 and some species of rockfish. hi 1995, the recre- 

 ational catch of rockfish off California was esti- 

 mated at 2,800,000 fish-. This may represent ap- 

 proximately 1 ,400 t, so it was an important com- 

 ponent of the estimated 8,400 t of rockfish (ex- 

 cluding thornyheads and widow rockfish) har- 

 vested in California in 1995. 



Off Washington and Oregon, the charter boat 

 fishery has relied on black rockfish to offset de- 

 clining opportunities to fish for salmon. In recent 

 years, the recreational catch of black rockfish has 

 been about 300 t in each of these states. Com- 

 mercial catch of black rockfish has been less than 

 one-third of that amount. The Pacific Fishery 



Landings 

 (>; 1,000 t) 



-Marine RcLrcacion,il Fisheries Statistics Survey data, NMI S 

 Office oFScience and Technology, Fisheries Statistics and F,co- 

 nomics Division, Silver Spring, MD 20910. 



20 - 



Other 



Dover sole 

 Sablefish 

 Widow rockfish 



I 



I 



_l_ 



_l_ 



_1_ 



I 



89 90 91 92 93 94 95 95 97 

 Year 



Management Council has supported initiatives to 

 provide long-term protection for this recreational 

 fishing opportunity by recommending spatial seg- 

 regation between recreational and commercial fish- 

 eries for black rockfish, and by imposing restric- 

 tive trip limits and bag limits on the commercial 

 and recreational fisheries, respectively. 



Landings 



The landed catch of most species is well-moni- 

 tored through a system of state fish landing re- 

 ceipts and collation of computerized copies of these 

 receipts into the centralized Pacific Fisheries In- 

 formation Network (PacFIN) database. Unfortu- 

 nately, funding for biological sampling of the land- 

 ings is inadequate, so the species composition of 

 mixed rockfish landings is not well known, and 

 size and age composition data are not adequate 

 for many species. 



The combined U.S. -Canada harvest of Pacific 

 whiting reached a record level of 3'i8,900 t in 1 994 

 (of which 252,700 t were caught in U.S. waters). 

 The increase in 1994 was due to a new stock as- 

 sessment based on an expanded and improved sur- 

 vey. However, the stock's spawning biomass con- 

 tinued to decline due to reduced recruitment, re- 

 sulting in lower available total yields in 1995-97 

 (Table lS-1). 



The landed catch of non-whiting groundfish 

 has generally declined since 1989, reaching ap- 



Figure 15-3 



Pacific Coast commercial 

 groundfish landings in met- 

 ric tons (t), excluding Pacific 

 whiting. 



1 79 



