Are Rockfish Still Spawning?

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I read your report every week, that rockfish are heading out of the bay. On May 5th last Saturday we caught a large rockfish in the lower Potomac and it was full of roe just coming in to head up river to spawn. I know they all spawn different times but a lot of people are getting fish in the lower bay and river just coming in. Is this Rare?

DNR Response from Keith Lockwood: It is hard to say what every rockfish is going to do. Most of the spawn is about over but nothing is absolute. There is always some amount of spawning that takes place in May. If the eggs are large and orange in color the fish has about two to three weeks till spawning, if they are a very dark greenish to almost black, less than a week. There is also the possibility that the fish is reabsorbing the eggs and she will not spawn for reasons only the fish knows and could be heading out to the ocean. Studies have shown that stress and hormone imbalances can have a negative effect on spawning success. So it is hard to say exactly what you encountered but these are a few possibilities.

Update May 12th: We trooled 65 feet and 55 feet and caught 0 fish. All fish hit in 25 feet of water. Three of us caught a 28 inch and 24 inch throw back and had a leader breaker after a 10 min fight.