The brightly colored yelloweye rockfish looks like a fish you might expect to see swimming near a tropical reef, but yelloweyes live in the frigid waters of the northeastern Pacific Ocean, from Baja California to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Anglers sometimes call yelloweyes red snapper, but they are not snappers and are not related to the red snappers found in the Gulf of Mexico.
Yelloweyes are among the largest rockfish found in Alaska and can grow to 36 inches (91.44 cm) in length and weigh 24 lbs. (11 kg.). They vary in color from orange-yellow to orange-red, and they tend to become more yellow as they age. Juveniles are usually bright red and have two vertical stripes, one above and one below the lateral line. As they age, the stripes fade, and their color changes to a red-orange or orange. A very old rockfish might be yellow. While their fins tips of adults are usually black, the fins of juveniles are tipped either white or black. As their name suggests, their eyes gleam bright yellow, making them easy to identify. In addition to the spines found in their dorsal and anal fins, several small spines sprout from their head.
Adult yelloweyes are solitary fish and live in steep, rocky areas, where they can find shelter. They typically live on the ocean bottom, and they don’t venture far from their rocky homes. They usually live between 300 and 600 ft. (91.44 – 182.88 m), but they have been found in only 48 ft. (14.63 m) of water and as deep as 1,800 ft. (548.64 m). Because yelloweyes live in rocky areas near the bottom and have small ranges, biologists classify them as one of the species of non-pelagic rockfish.
Rockfish are long-lived and slow to mature. Yelloweyes can live over 100 years, and the oldest recorded was a 121-year-old individual caught in Southeast Alaska. Yelloweye males mature when they are approximately 18-years-old, while females do not reach sexual maturity until 22-years of age. Males fertilize a female’s eggs internally, and the female then carries and nourishes the eggs until they hatch into larvae. One female can give birth to as many as 2,700,00 larvae.
Since the female nourishes her eggs and gives birth to live organisms, you might expect rockfish to have a higher reproductive success rate than do other fish species where eggs receive little or no parental care, but unfortunately, only a small percentage of rockfish larvae survive to adulthood, and even fewer survive until they are sexually mature. As soon as they are released, ocean currents sweep most of the larvae out to sea, and the young fish die before they have a chance to feed and grow. Other larvae starve to death from a lack of food, while many fall prey to larger fish, seabirds, and other organisms. The few larvae that survive, drift with the ocean currents while they eat and grow into small fish. They then settle to the bottom where they can find protection from predators among rocks and under kelp. As the young grow, they move into deeper water.
Yelloweye populations are fragile and vulnerable to overfishing. Females do not reproduce until they are over twenty-years-old, and once the female releases her larvae, few of the young survive. Recruitment of young fish into the population is slow, and if a fish reaches sexual maturity and is then caught by an angler or eaten by a predator, the population suffers not only the loss of this one individual but also the loss of all the potential young this one fish could have produced during its long life.
Because yelloweyes seldom move from one area to another, they are easy targets for anglers, and they are easy to catch. Even strict regulations which prevent the retention of non-pelagic rockfish do not protect yelloweyes because when an angler reels a yelloweye to the surface from a depth greater than 90 ft., the fish usually cannot return to the bottom, and when released, it floats at the surface until it dies. Yelloweyes, like other rockfish, have an un-vented swim bladder, and as the swim bladder inflates when the fish is reeled to the surface, it compresses internal organs and often pushes the stomach out of the mouth. The fish cannot deflate its swim bladder at the surface, but the swim bladder will deflate to the normal size if the angler can return the fish to the bottom where it was caught. New deep-water release techniques have helped improve the survivability of released rockfish.
The best way to avoid killing a yelloweye is to avoid fishing in the rocky areas where they live. Fisheries biologists find it difficult and expensive to manage non-pelagic rockfish because hauling them to the surface to tag them would likely kill them. Researchers believe most yelloweye populations in Alaska remain stable, but they’ve enacted strict regulations to protect these beautiful fish.
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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
