Flathead sole are distributed from northern California, off Point Reyes, northward along the west coast of North America and throughout the Gulf of Alaska and the Eastern Bering Sea, the Kuril Islands, and possibly the Okhotsk Sea.
The demersal shelf rockfish complex (yelloweye, quillback, copper, rosethorn, China, canary, and tiger rockfish) is a Tier 4 complex and assessed on a biennial cycle. A full stock assessment is typically conducted every second year.
The Gulf of Alaska deepwater flatfish complex is assessed every four years and was last assessed in 2019.
In years without an assessment, we present an executive summary to recommend harvest levels for the
next two years.
In accordance with the approved schedule, no assessment was conducted for this stock this year, a full stock assessment will be conducted in 2023. The values generated from the previous stock assessment will be rolled over for 2023 specifications.
The scheduled frequency for some stock assessments was recently changed in response to the National Stock Assessment Prioritization effort. In previous years, all Gulf of Alaska rockfish stocks were assessed on a biennial stock assessment schedule.
Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) inhabit the northeastern Pacific Ocean from northern Mexico to the Gulf of Alaska, westward to the Aleutian Islands, and into the Bering Sea.
Yellowfin Sole (Limanda aspera) is one of the most abundant flatfish species in the eastern Bering Sea and currently is the target of the largest flatfish fishery in the world.
The Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) skate complex is managed in aggregate, with a single set of harvest specifications applied to the entire complex. However, to generate the harvest recommendations the stock is divided into two units.