SALEM — The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted 2025 recreational and commercial groundfish regulations at its meeting Friday that continues a five-fish recreational bag limit during the popular summer months.
Nearshore groundfish species — approximately a dozen species of rockfish, cabezon, greenlings, and lingcod — are subject to joint state and federal management. The 2023 stock assessment for both black rockfish and canary rockfish resulted in a reduced quota for Oregon’s fisheries.
While the year will start with a four-fish daily marine bag limit, the bag limit increases to five fish starting July 1 with a one-fish sub-bag limit of canary rockfish all year.
ODFW heard support for this approach during meetings earlier in the year when it asked for public feedback on how to accommodate the reduced quotas. This approach is expected to provide a stable fishery throughout the year, with a low risk that the bag limit will need to be further reduced in-season.
The increased bag limit during the popular summer months will provide the most opportunity as many visitors come to the Oregon coast to vacation and fish during summer and ocean conditions are also much better. The commercial nearshore fishery’s bi-monthly trip limits are also reduced for 2025.
ODFW is seeking to collect more data on black rockfish to increase confidence in survey data and hopefully increase the quota; the 2025 reduction in quota would have been larger but for ODFW assessment data.
