The Pacific Fishery Management Council on Saturday reviewed and agreed to move forward with the Scientific and Statistical Committee's accepted practices guidelines for 2025'26 groundfish stock assessments, while public commenters urged independent review of the petrale (petrale) sole assessment and better incorporation of local sampling and recreational tagging data.

The council's accepted-practices briefing, presented by Marlene Bellman, described the document as a supplement to the council's terms of reference for groundfish stock assessment review. Bellman said the guidelines provide default approaches assessment teams should consider and that teams may diverge from the guidelines if they document reasons before review panels. "This document is intended to supplement the council's terms of reference for the groundfish stock assessment review process and provide groundfish stock assessment teams with default approaches to consider when dealing with certain stock assessment data and modeling issues," Bellman said.

The SSC's report, summarized by Dr. John Field, said the groundfish subcommittee considered spatial closures, use of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) survey indices, and other revisions. The SSC endorsed the guidelines with only minor edits and noted that ROV-based absolute abundance estimates remain analytically challenging and would require additional development and review. "No explicit guidance on the use of ROV abundance indices was added," Field said, adding that any ROV estimates would likely be species-specific and subject to additional uncertainties.

Why it matters: the guidelines aim to standardize and speed stock assessment development while allowing assessment teams flexibility; ROV methods and incorporation of recreational and citizen-science data could change how abundance is estimated for some rockfish and flatfish stocks.

Public commenters told the council they do not trust recent reductions and want more local sampling and independent review. Trawl fisherman Jerry Nozitskaya, speaking through his son Giuseppe, said petrale sole appeared abundant to him and that dock sampling has been insufficient. "If there is supposed to be a sampling done for the catches on our docks to assure accurate models of the population...sampling on my catches have hardly ever been done in the past 4 years for petrale sole," Jerry said. He asked the council to "call for an independent review of the petrale sole stock assessment and possibly an overview of the entire stock assessment process."

Del Norte County Supervisor Chris Howard and Crescent City fisherman Steve Huber pressed for better use of charter-boat and recreational data to reflect local quillback rockfish abundance. Howard urged the council to "find some way to allow the data that's being collected by our charter boat captains...to be placed into these models." Huber described limited dock sampling effort in the north coast and proposed increased tagging and targeted data collection, including collaboration with CCFRP (the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program).

Council discussion acknowledged the public concerns while describing the guideline as nonbinding. Executive Director Eric Burton said the guidance is "intended to be helpful" and that assessment teams can depart from it with documented rationale. Several council members and advisory groups stressed continued work to incorporate ROV indices and recreational/citizen data where scientifically appropriate; Council members also noted a separate, contemplated project to review the overall stock assessment process.

No formal motion was required for the item; the council provided guidance to the SSC to move forward with the accepted practices guidelines and indicated support for continuing work on ROV and local data integration.

Looking ahead: the SSC and groundfish subcommittee will continue technical development of ROV indices and related methodology, and stock assessment teams will determine species-by-species inclusion of new indices prior to review panels.