Adult Yelloweye - Hood Canal

[PeninsulaDiver]

Don had some minor engine repairs to do on "Down Time" this week and finished them last evening. The plan for today was to take her out and conduct a few tests to make sure she is good to go for this weekends charters. I brought my dive gear along because if everything went well, I was going to explore a dive site on my scooter which we have not dove in awhile. The tests went well so I geared up and went for a dive.

On the site, I was able to locate at least 3 Wolfeel and 3 Octopus one of which was absolutely huge. The best sighting of the dive, however, was an adult Yelloweye Rockfish. I found him/her at ~75fsw. I have seen Juvenile Yelloweye but can't ever remember seeing an adult underwater. Here is a short video. Someday I really need to upgrade to a "real" camera.

Hope you enjoy, because I sure did!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DWVs0c1mOs[/youtube]


-Mark

[ktb]

Uh . . . if I remember correctly from my REEF class, that's incredibly rare, no? How very, very cool!!

[nwscubamom]

You remember right, Kelly. In my 800+ dives, I've never seen one. Juvs, yes. Adults, no. (well, you can't count the dives I saw them nose-to-nose while inside the exhibits at the Oregon Coast Aquarium - that's cheating!)

Mark, this is SOOOO amazingly cool. And don't discount your camera - it did just fine!

So now I guess you're president of the ISAY Club? President, and probably only member too!

- Janna

[WylerBear]

That is way cool!
Except, of course, as a deep water fish, what is this telling us about the low O2 level in Hood Canal? We shouldn't see these guys at recreational depths.
But, it is still cool you got to see one.

[Jan K]

Wow. And well documented sighting too...

[LCF]

Oh, very cool, exciting dive! I love the erratic "hit the jackpot" nature of diving . . . you just never know what a dive is going to dish up until you do it.

[Sounder]

Very very cool!!

[Dusty2]

Nice work Mark. Glad you were able to document it and share.

[Sabre_Rider]

I use to commercial fish years ago, and once in a while I would bring up an yelloweye. Very pretty colored fish in my opinion. Anyways, I got one about 15lbs one day, and just happened to get inspected by a marine biologist at the dock when I returned. The gal told me that with thier slow growth rate and long life span, she guessed is was somewhere around 150 years old. So the fish you seen has probably been swimming around since before most of us were born.

[Tom Nic]

Yay!

[PeninsulaDiver]

So now I guess you're president of the ISAY Club? President, and probably only member too!
- Janna

If I must, however I suspect there are some Tech Divers out there who may have seen them at depth probably those who have dove the Governor perhaps.

I use to commercial fish years ago, and once in a while I would bring up an yelloweye. Very pretty colored fish in my opinion.

We used to catch a fair number of them incidentally sport fishing for Halibut and Ling anywhere from 200 to 400ft back in the day when it was legal to retain them. They are pretty but not with their swim bladders protruding from their mouths and their eyes bulging out of their sockets from the pressure change. Makes me a little sad to think about how old some of those fish may have been.

I love the erratic "hit the jackpot" nature of diving . . . you just never know what a dive is going to dish up until you do it.

So true. I never expected to see this guy but I knew what it was as soon as it caught my eye. I carry an el' cheapo Point and Shoot in my drysuit pocket for such occasions. No pics, no proof, right?

That is way cool! Except, of course, as a deep water fish, what is this telling us about the low O2 level in Hood Canal? We shouldn't see these guys at recreational depths. But, it is still cool you got to see one.

I agree. Time will tell. Hopefully it was just a freak thing.

-Mark

[John Rawlings]

Wow! What a great experience for you!

I've seen only one adult Yelloweye Rockfish - an absolutely HUGE fish on the wreck of the Capilano up in BC. I was able to get some pics of it, but not real good ones me following it around in the wreck seemed to make it pretty darned nervous. It may have been your lighting, but the one I saw was a darker orange whereas yours looks rather yellow.

So....I'm in the ISAY club, too! Anyone else?

- John

[nwscubamom]

I'm in the ISAY club now!! Went there yesterday with Mark, and it's still hanging out down there, but was hiding under a rock. We *almost* went right by it, when I caught a glimpse of something "different" under a boulder. Sure enough, it was Mark's yelloweye!

Here's what caught my eye:


Not it's best feature, really! Then I went around the other side of the boulder, hoping that I might be able to see more of this fellow (or lady). And bingo, there it was, smiling at me!



After awhile, it decided to turn around in its hole and poke its head the other way, where its tail had previously been.


Love the spinyness of its face!


Anyway, I can die happy now, having seen one of these once-in-a-lifetime fish Oh wait, no I can't - I haven't seen a sixgill yet!! :angry:

- Janna

[Jan K]

Congratulations Janna, what a scoop. And the strobe worked, camera worked, the fish turned to pose for you, you are one lucky girl ! Great portrait of rare critter...

[dphershman]

Congratulations Janna, what a scoop. And the strobe worked, camera worked, the fish turned to pose for you, you are one lucky girl ! Great portrait of rare critter...

I second that!

[whatevah]

Wow - this is excellent - cool sighting indeed. I've probably seen a half dozen adult Yelloweyes in the San Juans over the past couple of years - never saw anything but juveniles before that. I think it's the combination of me extending my time at depth along with a generous helping of luck in finding the right spots as I continue to explore different contours on my charts. Certainly these are not suddenly grown to maturity from the juveniles I was seeing in past years - that takes too long - I think these adults are the few that have managed to hide away. But some of them are definitely doing the wild thang - seeing heaps of babies around. They are super cool fish and I'm glad to know people are bumping into the occasional individual in Hood Canal too.

Up in Winter Harbour I was seeing Yelloweye Rockfish everywhere. I will be submitting several REEF surveys in which I'll be reporting upwards of ten in a single dive. One Yelloweye was particularly memorable - she was huge and clearly gravid - saw her on one of the most amazing dives I've ever experienced and got to watch her chasing other rockfish (Chinas, Quillbacks etc) away from her den. Had the wrong lens on that dive of course. Here's one of my Yelloweye shots from a different dive up north...

[nwscubamom]

That's great, Pete! I wonder at what age/length they lose their body stripes? We figured the one in Hood Canal was about 22" and did not have any body stripes at all.

- Janna

[whatevah]

Janna until recently I felt sure that Yelloweyes always lose those stripes as they grow - it seemed like all the large Yelloweyes I'd ever seen were pure red/orange - no stripes at all. But now I think back and realize that all the fish I saw that way were dead - laying on docks. I've seen the way pigmentation can change on Lingcod and Copper Rockfish when hauled up - I am starting to think it works that way for Yelloweyes too. The Milton Love book says that some lose all their stripes at maturity and others don't. All the mature fish I saw up in Quatsino Sound still had a somewhat visible upper stripe - the lower stripe certainly fades though. You can see the dorsal spots on the larger fish in my photo too - something I hadn't noticed in Yelloweye sightings prior to my trip, but it is mentioned in the book.

I just played PeninsulaDiver's video and have to say that something seems odd about that Yelloweye. It looks haggard - the color is washed out and the fins look ragged. And the way it swims makes it look like it is compromised somehow. I wonder if it survived some barotrauma at some point, or if perhaps it is environmentally stressed. Do you guys run into many juveniles in Hood Canal? It's been a while since I was there - don't remember if I noticed any or not.

Another thing I learned on my trip is that once they get to the cleaning table, Yelloweye Rockfish and Vermilion Rockfish look very similar. I stopped by to chat with a bunch of anglers back at the dock each day and check out what they'd harvested - many lumped Yelloweyes and Vermilions into the same category - didn't really know how to differentiate between the two. Makes me think that some of the historical anecdotes about "Red Snapper" or "Rock Cod" etc might be questionable - Wayne Palsson suggested the same to me at a meeting recently and now I have seen it first hand.

[John Rawlings]

Here's a shot of a mature Yelloweye that I took years ago on the wreck of the Capilano up in BC. I really wish that I had been able to get a good frontal or side view of this guy because he was such a huge, gorgeous fish - even with the exaggeration of size underwater he looked to be well over three feet in length. He seemed extremely healthy and the wreck was clearly "his" domain.

With all of the hidey-holes on the wreck he was able to escape and evade me pretty darn well, and since I wasn't yet diving a CCR back then I didn't have a lot of bottom time to play with, so this was the best shot that I was able to get.

There were loads of Rockfish on the wreck of various species, including several juvenile Yelloweyes.

Makes me think that I need to go back to see what's living there now....

- John

[CaptnJack]

There are alot of adult yelloweye in the Strait of Georgia in general, probably a half dozen on the Capilano last week (130ft at the sand, 110ft along the top). In my experience most (90+%) seem have lost the lower stripe or its so washed out to be indistinct in the water, but they always seem to retain the whiteish lateral line band.

There are a few adult yelloweye in the Seattle aquarium dome, but their colors are a bit wacky being forced to live for decades at 18ft and shallower.

Richard

[Biodiversity_Guy]

And on the stripes question. In conversing with Doug up on Vancouver Island, he reported that he had seen individual yelloweyes in the +/- 14" range that had "adult" colors with no suggestion of juvenal stripes and other larger individuals that showed the stripe.

[whatevah]

Makes me think that I need to go back to see what's living there now....

Me too - and take more photos for us to see!

[whatevah]

And on the stripes question. In conversing with Doug up on Vancouver Island, he reported that he had seen individual yelloweyes in the +/- 14" range that had "adult" colors with no suggestion of juvenal stripes and other larger individuals that showed the stripe.

Most of the rockfish have big variation in their rate of growth, and Milton Love's book says Yelloweyes are no different. It also says that "As the fish matures, the stripes fade and the color changes from red-orange to a lighter orange. Subadults lose the lower white stripe and often have white fins. Underwater, the stripes are more apparent and the distinct white mottling along the dorsal surface is noticeable even in some large adults. Fish that live in habitats with dark backgrounds often develop a dark brown-red back and sides and usually a red-orange belly."

You know - looking through that book, I'm finding that there are several other species of rockfish whose range includes our area that have similiar coloration - some even have yellowish eyes. While I'm sure we're all learning that there's wide variation in Yelloweyes, it might pay to take a more critical look at our identification - we might be looking at something completely different.