Owen Hammel, instructor and co-lead reviewer for the widow rockfish update, presented results that differ substantially from the 2019 update and called for further review. Key points:

- Current estimates: 2025 age-4 biomass ~83,000–84,000 metric tons and stock status ~55% fraction unfished spawning output.
- Changes since 2019: the large 2013 recruitment estimated in the 2019 update is not supported by data through 2024; bottom-trawl surveys show more old fish and that pattern lowers estimated natural mortality and overall productivity.
- Data issue in previous updates: Hammel said the 2019 estimate of a very large 2013 year class was driven in part by a limited hook-and-line discard length dataset and an inadvertent inclusion of data from another fleet; more recent data do not replicate that signal.

Because of the scale of the change and industry concerns about spatial hotspots and model fit, the Groundfish Subcommittee and the SSC recommended a supplemental review (planned for October) that will include outside expert review and an opportunity to test alternative model structures (e.g., spatial selectivity, fecundity relationships, data filtering). Participants emphasized that fishing is concentrated in local hotspots (industry comment) and asked assessors whether non-spatial, coastwide models might overstate coastwide declines; assessors acknowledged the difficulty of building fully spatially explicit age-structured models when spatial origin of age samples is unknown and said they will explore ways to represent spatial and fleet heterogeneity in the supplemental work.

Next steps: supplemental review in October with final SSC consideration at the November Council meeting; assessors will investigate spatial selectivity options, recheck past data inclusions and produce bridging analyses for stakeholders.