The best yellow eye I've had was blackened and served over rice. Pretty dang good. The yellow eye was fresh of course. Glad to see rockfish getting so much love. I have seen an increase in folks wanting black rockfish limits over the last 5 years.
The best rockfish release tool I've used is the seaqualizer. It clips on a downrigger ball to make for a quick operation and releases the . The noaa biologists brought us some when we did the lingcod study this last May. 100 lingcod in 3 days. Had some pretty competitive jigging contests on the boat, that's for sure. It won't be long before everyone will be required to carry some sort of release mechanism and actually use it. The charter fleet in SE already has the requirement. Watching yelloweye float away is stupid.
Pity so many yellow-eye are discarded to die by those who halibut fish and can only keep one y-e, and don't know how to return them to the deep with a fair chance of survival. I hope you do.
