I have seen GoPro footage where they appear to swim off the device rather than get shook off and you can see the barrow trauma reduce. I have some confidence in the device that releases on pressure but guess that any effort is better than none. When we were at Doc Warner's two summers ago we caught a constant stream of rockfish, even trolling but only a handful of salmon. Seems like in some areas salmon are in more trouble than bottom fish. Next trip I will try a floating bait for halibut over my ball weight and see if it is true that you still catch flatties even if the hook is above the rock fish comfort level. I am not much of a fisherman, I just like boats!!!! Thanks for the reply. Bob
Survival is not 100%. There is some hooking mortality with all fishing and some may succumb to barrow trauma but most of them survive. I worked with NOAA on a study where 5 yelloweye rockfish were caught at depths of 225-300 feet at 3 different sites. The fish were all tagged with acoustic monitoring tags and descended. They were then monitored for about 6 months
New sub here from Oregon.
Awesome! Thank you!
I have seen GoPro footage where they appear to swim off the device rather than get shook off and you can see the barrow trauma reduce. I have some confidence in the device that releases on pressure but guess that any effort is better than none. When we were at Doc Warner's two summers ago we caught a constant stream of rockfish, even trolling but only a handful of salmon. Seems like in some areas salmon are in more trouble than bottom fish. Next trip I will try a floating bait for halibut over my ball weight and see if it is true that you still catch flatties even if the hook is above the rock fish comfort level. I am not much of a fisherman, I just like boats!!!! Thanks for the reply. Bob
OK at 4:00+ I see the descending device. Bob
Do the rockfish make it OK back down? When I was in AK we had to use a sinker tool to get them down to survival depth, not sure that it works?
Bob
Survival is not 100%. There is some hooking mortality with all fishing and some may succumb to barrow trauma but most of them survive. I worked with NOAA on a study where 5 yelloweye rockfish were caught at depths of 225-300 feet at 3 different sites. The fish were all tagged with acoustic monitoring tags and descended. They were then monitored for about 6 months