2019 Assessment of Northern and Southern Rock Sole Stocks in the Gulf of Alaska
February 03, 2020
The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) northern and southern rock sole assessment has been moved to a 4-year assessment cycle following the stock assessment prioritization schedule.
The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) northern and southern rock sole assessment has been moved to a 4-year assessment cycle following the stock assessment prioritization schedule. During years when a full assessment is not completed a partial assessment will be done. This year marks a partial assessment year. The last full assessment was completed in 2017 and marked the first year of the new assessment schedule. The results from the 2017 full Assessment of Northern and Southern Rock Sole Stocks in the Gulf of Alaska (PDF, 94 pages) can be found online (Bryan et al. 2017).
A statistical catch-at-age model configured in Stock Synthesis 3 is used as the primary assessment tool for GOA northern and southern rock sole, which qualify as tier 3 stocks. The model is run separately for each species. The data used in the assessment model includes fishery catch, the GOA trawl survey biomass, fishery and survey size composition, and survey conditional age-at-length. The full assessment model was not run this year. The projection model was updated with new catch data and run to provide updated management advice.