Status of yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus) off the U.S. West Coast

This assessment reports the status of the yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus) resource off the west coast of the United States, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. This stock is treated as a single coastwide population as in the previous two assessments (Wallace et al. 2005, Methot et al. 2002) and additionally as separate sub-populations in area models for Washington, Oregon and California. Although there is no apparent genetic distinction between areas, yelloweye are considered to be sedentary, habitat specific, and non-migratory signifying a slow rate of mixing where area-specific patterns are likely to persist for some time. This life history feature would support area-specific model configurations. Additionally, differences in CPUE trends and exploitation between areas further indicate the need for area-specific model configurations. For these reasons, we believe that separate area models for California and Oregon better represent sub-stock dynamics than the coastwise model and should be used for management considerations.