Ancient Rockfish

Might be old news to some by now but I thought this was fascinating...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/02/centuries-old-rockfish-believed-to-have-been-caught-off-alaskas-coast/

An insurance adjustor from Seattle caught a rockfish outside Juneau, Alaska, last week that weighed 39.08 pounds and believed to be around 200 years old, The Sitka Sentinel reported.
Henry Liebman, the adjustor, told the paper that he was fishing in 900 feet of water at the time and about 10 miles off the coast of Sitka. Rockfish, the paper said, have been known to live as far down as 4,000 feet.
“I knew it was abnormally big (but I) didn’t know it was a record until on the way back we looked in the Alaska guide book that was on the boat,” Liebman told the paper.
The fish was certified and a sample has been sent to a lab in Juneau where the fish’s age will be officially determined. Liebman, for his part, plans having the fish mounted. 
Troy Tidingco, the Sitka area manager from the state Department of Fish and Game, told the paper that the previous record rougheye was 205 years old and Liebman's that fish was "quite a bit smaller than the one Henry caught," the paper reported.
Rockfish have a high release mortality because they are caught in such deep waters. They often suffer from an inflated swim bladder after reaching the boat.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/02/centuries-old-rockfish-believed-to-have-been-caught-off-alaskas-coast/#ixzz2XuRwGHVn

lol.  Just posted it.  Much better with article!

frickin insurance adjusters.  get a real job.

I wonder what a 200 year old rockfish tastes like?

I'm thinking along the lines of Phillis Diller?

True

That fish probably survived all kinds of close encounters with apex predators over the past 200 years and freaking Bob the insurance adjuster kills it to mount it up on his cubicle wall.
A picture would have been sufficient.

That fish probably survived all kinds of close encounters with apex predators over the past 200 years and freaking Bob the insurance adjuster kills it to mount it up on his cubicle wall.
A picture would have been sufficient.

He caught it in 900 ft of water, putting it back in would have only resulted in a free meal for a crab.

That fish probably survived all kinds of close encounters with apex predators over the past 200 years and freaking Bob the insurance adjuster kills it to mount it up on his cubicle wall.
A picture would have been sufficient.

He caught it in 900 ft of water, putting it back in would have only resulted in a free meal for a crab.

If he got it out if 900 feet of water, wouldn't it theoretically survive if he lowered it back down to the same depth with a barotrauma rig?

Theoretically yes, reality, 99% no in my opinion.  Survival rates when dropping them back to 120ft or less are decently high, when you're coming from such depth, there will be more stretching and compressing of the organs, and it takes longer to reel up and send back down, all of which decreases likelihood that it will survive.  Plus, the thing was super old.

Theoretically yes, reality, 99% no in my opinion.  Survival rates when dropping them back to 120ft or less are decently high, when you're coming from such depth, there will be more stretching and compressing of the organs, and it takes longer to reel up and send back down, all of which decreases likelihood that it will survive.  Plus, the thing was super old.

My wildly uneducated opinion: I totally agree. I don't see any argument for releasing a fish that came from that deep. We do enough damage with the shallow fish with our lip grips and unsupported handling... there's no way this thing would have made it.

My question is, what else do you catch at 900 feet?  sablefish I assume. 

Once in ketchikan I fished at 400+ft for kicks, and got silvergray rockfish.  But it was not something you could do all day.  This is more than twice as deep.  I am curious to do this before I die.

Sable fish start at 600 feet and are found down to 3000. There are several species of big rockfish that live deep. Plus Idiot fish. (Kinda like a rockfish but not quite)

Plus halibut live that deep too.

The big problem is there is a lot of barren bottom that deep so finding fish is the challenge.

If you want to dream about something cool look into the Cobb Seamount off the OR coast. Something like 300 miles offshore and comes up to 165 FOW. Talk about structure!

Sent from my Motorola Flip phone.

Linglady's uncle is a retired coast guard captain, and he said they used to take researchers out there, and they would fish while they were waiting on the researchers to do their thing.  They would catch crazy big rockfish out there.

As a kid, I used to fish 600 to 700 ft deep off of Catalina for rockfish. We used 4 lb weights and a leader with 5 big circle hooks, usually squid for bait. A number of species were caught, including cow cod. Man, that was a lot of cranking!

Wow! Bringing that up from about a 27 atmosphere difference in pressure must have made for an uneventful fight after a couple hundred feet.  When it hit the 300 foot mark, it was probably buoyant enough to float up the weight.