Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of the upcoming holiday, the ODFW Marine Reserves Team would like to say thank you to all our highly skilled volunteer anglers, vessel captains, and crew that came out and assisted with this year’s hook-and-line surveys. We are happy to report that this year’s surveys were a huge success. We collected data on 4,325 fish (22 different species) from the Redfish Rocks, Cascade Head and Cape Falcon marine reserve sites. The biggest fish caught during the season was a 39 inch Lingcod and the smallest was a 5 inch Yellowtail Rockfish.

We have pulled together some preliminary results in our end of the season ‘Fish On!’ hook-and-line survey volunteer newsletter. The newsletter highlights the diversity of species caught during this season’s hook-and-line survey work, and underscores the uniqueness of each marine reserve site. Plus, it gives a sneak peek into an upcoming comprehensive analysis of the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve and Comparison Areas. With five years of monitoring data now collected at Redfish Rocks, we are conducting our first comprehensive analysis of the baseline conditions within the site. We will be working diligently on these analyses over the coming months. Look for our data discoveries in early 2016.

Be sure to check out the ‘Fish On!’ newsletter to learn more about this year’s hook-and-line surveys.