656 



Fishery Bulletin 92(3), 1994 



ment, studies of blue rockfish, S. mystinus (Miller 

 and Geibel, 1973) and olive rockfish, S. serranoides 

 (Love, 1980), as well as other studies of yellowtail 

 rockfish (Carlson and Haight, 1972; Pearcy, 1992), 

 indicate much more limited movement. In fact, dis- 

 persal from the tagging site was so limited in the 

 latter two studies that the authors hypothesized that 



yellowtail rockfish have strong homing tendencies 

 and exhibit site fidelity. However, these two studies 

 were conducted over limited spatial and temporal 

 scales. 



The purpose of this note is to examine the hypoth- 

 esis of limited versus extensive movement of yellow- 

 tail rockfish. We use data from our two studies, which 

 cover a broader time and space coverage than those 

 studies that implied limited move- 

 ment. We present the details of the 

 42 recaptures, discuss some of the 

 factors which may have influenced 

 the overall likelihood of recapture, 

 and conclude with a comment on 

 the management implications of 

 the results. 



Methods 



Methodology used in the Canadian 

 program, which was conducted 

 from 1980 to 1982, has been de- 

 scribed in detail (Shaw et al., 

 1981). The primary area of tagging 

 was off southwest Vancouver Is- 

 land; additional tagging was per- 

 formed in Queen Charlotte Sound 

 (Figs. 2 and 3). Fish were captured 

 by trawl at depths of 70-80 m over 

 bottom depths of 11 0-1 30 m. Prior 

 to tagging, all fish were anaes- 

 thetized with tricaine methan- 

 esulphonate (MS-222). Fish with 

 hyperinfiated swim bladders were 

 deflated with a hypodermic needle 

 to remove excess gas (Gotshall, 

 1964 ), measured to the nearest cm 

 (fork length), and tagged with an 

 external Floy anchor tag imbedded 

 in the dorsal musculature between 

 the pterygiophores. Most fish were 

 injected with oxytetracycline 

 (OTC) (50 mg/kg body wt.) (Lea- 

 man and Nagtegaal, 1987). All fish 

 were held for one hour in covered 

 tanks with a continuous flow of 

 seawater. Fish from the last haul 

 of each day were held overnight. 

 Condition after tagging and after 

 release was assessed by using a 

 numerical index based on several 

 categories of injuries (Shaw et al., 

 1981 ). We did not record sex of re- 

 leased specimens but did examine 



