Yes - if the fish was caught shallow enough (~200 feet or less) - shallow enough that the barotrauma is mild.
Not sure about 200 feet. In my experience, if you pull a Rockfish up from that depth it will have it's stomach pushed right out its mouth and its eye's bulged out from the bends/barotrauma and not be able to swim down and will just flop on the surface till it dies or gets taken out by birds and predators. In fact I would say that is true at shallower depths than 200 feet. Do you mean that testing has shown that 200 feet is the max depth that a Rockfish can be returned using a return tool and still survive the majority of the time and even then I would wonder about that at 200 feet. Historically if we were to pull a rockfish up from great depth (like 200 feet), usually while salmon fishing, we would use the one Rockfish retention rule in our area and put it in the fish box and then move away from that spot. I fish in an area that has lots of RCA areas protected on the charts and they would seem to be a more practical way of conserving Rockfish than these increasingly complex species specific rules that have identification issues.
I am curious as to if the other two sectors that commercial fish Rockfish also have the same return to the water by species rules and are also now required to use a return tool for all those species? Are Rockfish in RCA's protected from fishing by all sectors?
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