240 
Fishery Bulletin 115(2) 
Initial fork length (cm) 
Figure 3 
Recapture depth for sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) initially tagged in (A) 
depth zone 1 (141-302 m), (B) depth zone 2 (327-649 m), and (C) depth zone 
3 (1112-1225 m) off Newport, Oregon, during 1996-1998 (tagging set 1) or 
2003-2004 (tagging set 2) by initial fork length (in centimeters). Gray boxes 
indicate the range of depths at tagging. Fish from both tagging sets are com¬ 
bined. Solid symbols denote fish recaptured during the spawning season (No- 
vember-April) and open symbols denote fish recaptured in the nonspawning 
season (May-October). 
nonsignificant trend for females to be more likely to 
disperse than males (x^=3.47, P=0.062). In contrast, 
depth of initial capture had a highly significant effect, 
with fish from depth zone 3 rarely recaptured far from 
their tagging location (Fig. 5A; y^=2Qi.l, P<0.001). The 
proportion of recaptured fish that had dispersed from 
the tagging location increased with increased time at 
large (regression of proportion dispersers vs. years at 
large with years 14-19 combined: 13=30.2, P<0.001). 
For all recaptured fish at large at least 10 years (n=98), 
15% were categorized as dispersers. 
Dispersers tended to be smaller at initial capture 
than resident fish. This trend was significant for all 
fish combined (ANOVA: Pi 2559=26.1, P<0.001). For the 
smaller set of fish with known sex, the trend was sig¬ 
nificant for females (Pi 437 = 21.4, P<0.001) but not for 
males (Pi 238=0.6, P=0.453). In addition, within dispers¬ 
ers, smaller fish tended to migrate to greater distances 
than larger fish for all fish combined (Fig. 6; regres¬ 
sion: Pi 218=15.6, P<0.001, coefficient of determina¬ 
tion [r2]=0.07) as well as for females only (Pi 87 = 11 . 6 , 
P=0.001, r2=0.11) and for males only (Pi33=7.2, 
P=0.011, r2=0.16). 
Fish that migrated away from the tagging area 
tended to move north and around the Pacific Rim (Fig. 
7). Only 15% of the dispersers traveled south, and few 
of these moved more than 400 km; the most southern 
recapture location was Bodega Canyon, California, a 
straight line distance of about 800 km. Fish that trav¬ 
eled north and northwest were recaptured throughout 
the available geographic range of slope waters up to 
the western Aleutian Islands, and the most distant re¬ 
captures occurred near Tanaga Island, approximately 
4000 km as straight line travel, but presumably far 
greater if fish travel along depth contours. Eight fish 
were recaptured on seamounts off the west coast of 
the United States and Canada (7 fish in the vicinity 
of Brown Bear and Cobb and 1 on Bowie). An effect of 
