Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Sablefish Stock Assessment

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Sablefish Tagging & Tag Recovery

Sounds of com fishing – hydraulics, gear running,

On a blustery early June afternoon a team of biologists is working aboard the research vessel Medeia on the inside waters of Southeast Alaska. They are pulling slinky pots, basket-like mesh traps strung on a longline to catch sablefish – also known as black cod. Pots are ideal for catch-and-release fishing. Unlike hooks, which can injure a fish’s mouth, fish caught in pots are less likely to be hurt. Fish are caught alive, measured, tagged and released. The individually numbered tags are bright orange or green, about three inches long, and attached below the dorsal fin. When someone later catches the fish and turns in the tag, months or years later, researchers can identify the fish and document its movement and growth since it was tagged. Each year, about 700 tags each year are recovered and returned to fish and game by commercial fishermen and sport anglers.

Biologists have tagged sablefish in Southeast waters for close to 40 years to learn about their movement, growth, and abundance, which is important to management of the resource. In a typical year 6,000 to 8,000 sablefish are tagged in May and June in Southeast waters. Sablefish are caught months and even years later - in Southeast waters, the gulf of Alaska, and even thousands of miles distant in waters off Northern California, and off the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.