Maloney and Sigler: Age-specific movement patterns of Anoplopoma fimbria 
315 
One factor that may make the eastern GOA and 
British Columbia spawning grounds more favorable is 
that spawning depths in these areas are closer to the 
coast than those farther west because of the narrow 
continental shelf in much of the eastern GOA. Also, the 
prevailing north-flowing Alaska Current in the eastern 
GOA may carry pelagic larvae and young fish closer 
inshore for easier access to coastal nursery areas. In 
the central and western GOA, spawning depths are 
farther offshore, increasing predation risk for larvae, 
and there is no prevailing northerly current to trans- 
port larvae shoreward. Instead, the Alaskan Stream, 
up to 100 km wide, flows westward along the shelf 
break, more or less perpendicular to the route that 
offshore-spawned larval and juvenile sablefish must 
travel to reach inshore nursery grounds. Tokranov 
(2002) believes this current is the source of periodic 
occurrences of juvenile sablefish off Kamchatka and the 
Kuril Islands. Winter current direction and sablefish 
recruitment success are related, and above-average 
recruitment is more likely in years with northerly drift 
(59%) than for years with an easterly or southerly drift 
(25%) (Sigler et al., 2001). 
All the sablefish in this study originated in the east- 
ern GOA, but young-of-the-year sablefish have been 
caught in small numbers on various cruises in the Ber- 
ing Sea, Aleutian Islands, western and central GOA, as 
well as the eastern GOA from 1955 to 1999 (Kendall 
and Matarese, 1987; Sigler et al., 2001). These observa- 
tions indicate the likelihood of some direct recruitment 
into each of these areas, in addition to recruitment 
resulting from migration. Spawners contributing to 
each area may be migrants returning to the eastern 
GOA, adult fish that are resident in the area, or adult 
fish in an adjoining upstream area whose larvae are 
caught up in the prevailing currents and are carried 
westward. Although most fish in our study older than 
12 years were recovered in eastern GOA outside wa- 
ters, older fish (13 to 21 years) also were recovered in 
each of the other areas, indicating that they may have 
become resident in the new area at some point during 
migration. 
Our study corroborated much that is already known 
or suspected about sablefish migration in Alaska waters. 
In addition, our data on age by depth and area have 
refined our knowledge of sablefish movements. Further 
studies to locate sablefish nursery grounds throughout 
the GOA and in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands 
and to tag juveniles on these grounds as was done in 
the eastern GOA for our study would determine whether 
these movement patterns observed in the present study 
are similar to movement patterns of sablefish originat- 
ing in other regions of Alaska. 
Acknowledgments 
We thank all those who participated in juvenile sable- 
fish tagging cruises, as well as the many members of 
the fishing industry who have returned tags with catch 
information. J. Heifetz, D. Clausen, D. Hanselman, and 
three anonymous reviewers reviewed the paper and 
provided valuable comments and suggestions. 
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