Nonresidents can't keep yelloweye around Prince of Wales anymore

Nonresident anglers around Prince of Wales Island can no longer keep yelloweye rockfish, or any other demersal shelf rockfish, as of Wednesday. Alaska residents may still keep one a day, two in possession.

Yelloweye rockfish can live more than a century, and the state has been narrowing nonresident access to them. In 2025, nonresidents could keep one demersal shelf rockfish a year, in a window running July 1 through Aug. 25. In January, Fish and Game shortened the 2026 nonresident season Southeast-wide as a conservation measure.

The closure covers yelloweye, quillback, copper, canary, china, tiger and rosethorn rockfish.

Lingcod goes the other way. Nonresidents can keep them again starting Sept. 1 on the west side of Prince of Wales, south of Cape Decision. The limit is one a day and two a year, and the two must be different fish: one between 30 and 35 inches, one over 55. Anglers have to record species, date and location as soon as they land and keep a fish. Residents get one lingcod a day with no size limit.

Charter operators who run nonresident bottomfish trips typically shift to other species once the rockfish window closes.

Every sport fishing vessel must carry a working deepwater release device. Rockfish hauled up from depth cannot get back down on their own, and released fish must be returned to the depth of capture or at least 100 feet.

Fish and Game still describes bottom fishing around the island as good.