Yes they did push the closure South, to protect Yelloweye. NMFS declared Yelloweye overfished from Washington to California and restricted our take of Yelloweye to 3 Metric Tons. We caught 14 metric tons of Yelloweye last year, mostly from the area now closed. Since we can't catch halibut without catching Yelloweye in this area, the choices were either close the area or have the halibut season close in only two or three weeks.

For other halibut areas, (Info from charters, sorry I don't have waypoints):

-If you look at a chart you will see some places that you would pass over on the way to the now closed area. Many of these places hold hallibut where the bottom goes form deep to shallow.

-Further South of the closed area you will see some spots on the charts that hold fish as well.