220 
Fishery Bulletin 95(2), 1 997 
Figure 1 
Locations of the northern Washington index sites (Cape Flattery Spit, Quillayute) and the 
Canadian survey area. Goose Island, Mitchell’s, and Moresby Gullies, Langara Spit, and 
the Vancouver and Columbia management areas are also shown. 
In effect, the differential exploitation rates in wa- 
ters bordering the line separating the U.S.and Ca- 
nadian Fisheries Conservation Zones (Fig. 1) consti- 
tute an unplanned experiment that allows an evalu- 
ation of the discreteness of local rockfish stocks and 
of the spatial impact of intensive removals. If any 
intermingling takes place between stocks immedi- 
ately north and south of the U.S.-Canada line, the 
1980-84 experimental overfishing program in Cana- 
dian waters would also have impacted U.S. stocks. 
Two sites off the northern Washington coast, im- 
mediately south (28 km) of the experimental over- 
fishing area (Fig. 1), were monitored intensively dur- 
ing 1968-70 (Gunderson, 1974). The principal objec- 
tive of this study was to resurvey them in 1992 and 
evaluate the impact of intensive rockfish fishing in 
adjacent Canadian waters. The 1992 survey also pro- 
vided an opportunity to see how well abundance 
trends in the index sites off northern Washington 
reflected overall changes in the abundance of Pacific 
Table 1 
Catch rates (kg/h) from 1979 and 1985 Canadian trawl 
surveys in the Vancouver Island experimental fishing area 
(Leaman and Stanley, 1993). 
Species 
1979 
183-365 m 
depth 
1985 
160-439 m 
depth 
Relative 
change in 
catch rate 
(%) 
S. alutus 
1,149.7 
241.5 
-78.9 
S. diploproa 
343.5 
35.7 
-89.6 
S. aleutianus 
93.7 
8.8 
-90.6 
S. crameri 
31.1 
7.5 
-75.8 
Total Sebastes 
1,917.2 
378.1 
-80.3 
ocean perch in the U.S. Vancouver and Columbia 
management areas and to examine long-term 
changes in age composition, size at maturity, and 
growth at the index sites. 
