Well it has a lot to do with commercial trawl catches in the 80's of 30 to 40 metric tons each year and then a whopping 98 metric tons in 1989. Unfortunatly thats old news and we are left to deal with the restrictions. Then the other part of it has to do with the same ocean conditions that plague salmon. Cold is good, hot is bad, for reproduction.

Not to say that we never harvested any, usually around 10 to 12 metric tons yearly, until last year when we hit 15 metric tons. But in that lies the problem. Trying to reduce 15 mt down to 3mt when over 3/4 of the yelloweye catch is linked to the halibut season is a tall order.

Another problem is that this is not going away anytime soon. We probably won't be targeting much yelloweye in Washington for most of our lifetimes. NMFS makes a designation of overfished now and we get a rebuilding plan. This could cut us back further next year.

But we are still better off with a good rebuilding plan then the alternative, a plan with minimal conservation. What happened a few years ago with fluke is a plan that had little chance of success and the enviros sued. The result was a federal judge implimenting severe restrictions. They estimate losses of about $100 million yearly because of it.