Fishery Management
- NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific Fishery Management Council manage the yellowtail rockfish fishery on the West Coast.
- Yellowtail rockfish are managed as a single stock north of Cape Mendocino, California, and southward, as part of the southern Pacific coast minor shelf rockfish complex.
- Managed under the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan:
- Permits and limited entry to the fishery.
- Limit on how much may be harvested in one fishing trip.
- Certain seasons and areas are closed to fishing.
- Gear restrictions help reduce bycatch and impacts on habitat.
- A trawl rationalization catch share program that includes:
- Catch limits based on the population status of each fish stock and divided into shares that are allocated to individual fishermen or groups.
- Provisions that allow fishermen to decide how and when to catch their share.
- Yellowtail rockfish have been underutilized. The recent harvest rule changes to the catch share program will allow increased catches of underutilized species, such as yellowtail and chilipepper rockfish, lingcod, and Pacific cod. These changes were possible because of improvements observed in other stocks that had previously constrained the harvest of fish like yellowtail rockfish due to low population levels.
- NOAA Fisheries and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council manage yellowtail rockfish as part of the Gulf of Alaska other rockfish complex.
- Managed under the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska:
- There is no directed fishing for this species in the Gulf of Alaska, and only minor amounts are landed incidentally in other fisheries.