Rockfish Descenders

Lets make this common practice folks.

They should be mandatory.

They should be mandatory.

+1. It's moving many anglers who'd normally fish shallow to fishing deep reefs who previously may have never had to worry or consider "floaters."

Maybe the managers' bycatch mortality estimates included the risk of "floaters" due to lack of descenders, and the modeled mortality rates were below the federal thresholds for killing no-take species? Surely the descender topic must've come up at some point in their meetings. I'd love to know how those conversations went down.

It's going to give managers a horrible look if they end up having to enact emergency closures due to exceeding mortality thresholds...hopefully it doesn't come to that.

As well as party boats.

Huge offenders back in the day. I rarely ride on party boats other than long range trips to Big Sur. Still see patrons that throw decent fish over to try for larger, resulting in floaters. Party boats not at fault but they really don't emphasize the importance of not releasing fish in this way during the safety briefing before departure. I think if patrons were warned they would be cut off from fishing for the remainder of the fishing trip for doing so, it might help. Not sure if that is feasible though.

At what depth does this become important? Seems like ~100ft?

As a kid, we would catch rockfish all day on the Oregon coast, mostly between 150-200ft, and they would always come up all bulgy-eyed.

On the kayak in CA, I haven't fished deeper than ~50ft, and haven't seen any fish come up like that.

At what depth does this become important? Seems like ~100ft?

As a kid, we would catch rockfish all day on the Oregon coast, mostly between 150-200ft, and they would always come up all bulgy-eyed.

On the kayak in CA, I haven't fished deeper than ~50ft, and haven't seen any fish come up like that.

Some species "blow up" more frequently than others. My experience, yelloweyes are particularly prone to barotrauma. If they're brought up from more than 100 feet, they often require a descender.

Oregon anglers are required to have and use descenders anytime they're out bottomfishing, regardless of the depth. When I reel up a bloated YE, I clip my Shelton descender to my "heavy" rod and start with a 32 oz cannonball. If the 32 oz isn't enough to descend the fish, I add additional 10 oz weights to the descender until the fish starts to sink. If the YEs are thick, I try to pick up and move to get away from them or I change to "lingcod only" baits that the YEs won't bite.

When fishing in 100+ ft, you have to carry enough lead with you to descend big rockfish. How much that may be for a RF brought up from 300+ ft, I don't know.

I would bring at least 5 lbs and 7 is even better. A huge old yellow eye took 5 lbs at 120’.

Hum, not sure if this is a good idea or knot  . Could just use my downrigger for descention then, just need to see about how to release it.

At what depth does this become important? Seems like ~100ft?

As a kid, we would catch rockfish all day on the Oregon coast, mostly between 150-200ft, and they would always come up all bulgy-eyed.

On the kayak in CA, I haven't fished deeper than ~50ft, and haven't seen any fish come up like that.

Some species "blow up" more frequently than others. My experience, yelloweyes are particularly prone to barotrauma. If they're brought up from more than 100 feet, they often require a descender.

Oregon anglers are required to have and use descenders anytime they're out bottomfishing, regardless of the depth. When I reel up a bloated YE, I clip my Shelton descender to my "heavy" rod and start with a 32 oz cannonball. If the 32 oz isn't enough to descend the fish, I add additional 10 oz weights to the descender until the fish starts to sink. If the YEs are thick, I try to pick up and move to get away from them or I change to "lingcod only" baits that the YEs won't bite.

When fishing in 100+ ft, you have to carry enough lead with you to descend big rockfish. How much that may be for a RF brought up from 300+ ft, I don't know.

I figured some species were more prone to it than others, and I have no idea what types we caught back then - it was like 30 years ago, haha. I remember some were black, some orange, some yellow, some red, and some spotted in various colors, haha.  We were usually deep enough that most of them were pretty obviously barotrauma-ed, and they were all big enough we never really threw any back.

I like the idea of the milk crate with rebar on the bottom from the video. Pain in the butt on a kayak probably, but fool proof on a boat, and easy to make heavy enough to sink it all the way.

I'm not sure if they still do it but Oregon dwf was sending out safety pin style descenders and a rockfish ID chart for free on request (even to ca addresses). Easy to slip in the kit but haven't needed it on the yak yet luckily.

With my buddies boat we all pitched in for the pressure release one and just attached it to the downrigger when we fished deeper near the 180' cutoff. Worked out great for the big yellow eye we needed to revive.

I'm not sure if they still do it but Oregon dwf was sending out safety pin style descenders and a rockfish ID chart for free on request (even to ca addresses).

They do not. 

I'm not sure if they still do it but Oregon dwf was sending out safety pin style descenders and a rockfish ID chart for free on request (even to ca addresses).

They do not.

I was lucky enough to have some fish counters offer some free descenders while they checked my catch here in Monterey. Hit um up, you might get lucky.

Shelton Descenders available for $7.25 at Englund Marine: https://www.englundmarine.com/products/shelton-fish-descender%7CSHL-SFD.html

Not a fancy device, but it's effective and takes up minimal room on the kayak. Lead not included.

I would bring at least 5 lbs and 7 is even better. A huge old yellow eye took 5 lbs at 120’.

we had a grand daddy G.E. that took 4 40oz salmon balls to get back down.

I would bring at least 5 lbs and 7 is even better. A huge old yellow eye took 5 lbs at 120’.

we had a grand daddy G.E. that took 4 40oz salmon balls to get back down.

10 lbs seems excessive.  But it’s not a bad idea to have that much available.