Northwest Dive Club

Yelloweye rockfish, canary rockfish, and Boccacio.

The same individual has just filed a 2nd petition requesting threatened status for Tiger and China rockfish in Puget Sound.

Biodiversity_Guy wrote:The same individual has just filed a 2nd petition requesting threatened status for Tiger and China rockfish in Puget Sound.

I have never heard of anyone sighting either of them in Puget sound anyway so I would say they are pretty rare in the sound.

There are old records of tiger rockfish in Central puget Sound and Seattle, but I don't know of any PS records for Chinas.

Sam Wright, the fellow that filed the petition talks about catching Tigers down near Steamboat Island (south puget sound) years ago. I don't think there are any/many records of Chinas in South puget sound.

I think Chinas are seen around the San Juans occasionally. Pete/Janna, haven't you seen Chinas up in the Islands? Do you encounter Tigers?

I saw a Tiger Rockfish at Keystone Jetty.

Tigers in the San Juans - yes, absolutely. Chinas though? I haven't seen one ever, but I think Pete says he did.

Unfortunately, I think Sam is basing his assessment of Chinas in Puget Sound on erroneous/fringe REEF data. Misidentifications. There are a few of these sightings in the database, and as you guys know, the China is one of the most often misidentified rockfish for noobs. They usually turn out to be Quillbacks or funky colored Coppers when questioned further about the sightings. This is where there's a big difference between the Expert data and the Novice data. (and why data should be sorted out that way).

So, calling something endangered because it isn't found in Puget Sound is not very accurate - especially if you consider that it wasn't ever here in the first place.

- Janna

So. I don't think anyone is going to believe me but here's a story about yesterday. I'll back up a little bit and say that I've always wanted to see a China Rockfish and heard that you have to go to Neah Bay to see them. I've not had the chance to get up there yet but I got my chance to see my first one (and dozens more) when I was up at God's Pocket/Browning Pass in October. Fabulous stuff up there. I'm not sure how one can mistake a copper or quillback for a china since they look so different to me.

Fast forward to yesterday. Howie's Aluminator had some extra space so I convinced a buddy to go with me as I didn't have any other plans. The tides were right for Blake Island reef and I've been there a few times, but with a scooter and a heating vest, there's not really any such thing as a bad dive. Howie knows that Bart and I are tec divers and that we had scooters so he mentioned that most of the reef is around 50-90 fsw but there's "something" listed on the nav charts around 100 feet on the eastern half of the reef. We decided to check it out. Scooted south in a decent (1 knot) current and took a left around 100-110 fsw. We found an EPIC junk pile down where this "something" was supposed to be, LOADED with life: Lingcod, Cabezon, oodles of delicious looking scallops. This epic pile of concrete pilings and chunks of some old concrete bridge ranged in depth from 85 feet to past where I was willing to go on EANx 32 (120 fsw.)

At one point I was just enjoying the rubble when I panned my 35W HID to the left and there he was. A china rockfish under a small overhang! I had to do a double take because I was told it's not possible to see a China here then I frantically signaled my buddy. I turned back and he was gone. I stuck my head in where he was and tried to find him again, but he was nowhere to be seen. I though it might be a good idea to check my depth and make sure I wasn't accidentally at 150 fsw and hallucinating, but there I was at 111 fsw.

I guess I'm going to have to find a way to get back there which isn't easy since I don't have a boat but, I'm just saying... I saw one.

China's seem to like surge and are almost always found quite shallow. I've only seen them up off Port Hardy and in Barkley Sound. Both times in ~30fsw or so. Whether they were historically found elsewhere I don't know.

Ack almost 2yo thread!

I've seen a salmon shark in the San Juans and a sunfish near Neah Bay. I believe both sightings would be classified as accidental/incidental and not part of a native population, like the brown pelican sitting at the T-docks. In the same vein, I have no doubt that people have seen chinas and tigers in Puget Sound, but would argue there is no sustainable population and going through the effort to list them is a wasted effort. Personally, I have been encouraged by what I have seen with black rockfish rebound and hope it continues. I really doubt that I will see an explosion in the Puget Sound tiger/china numbers, regardless of any action taken on their behalf. I've been wrong before.
-Curt
And no Jana, I didn't mis-identify the mola-mola.

Hey Curt - I totally believe you about the mola mola. There have been sightings of them every few years in Puget Sound! (yes, complete with photos). So they venture in even further than Neah Bay every so often.
Here's the 2010 sighting off Port Townsend:
http://www.pnwscuba.com/critterwatchers ... htm#molapt

And here's another off Redondo:
http://www.pnwscuba.com/critterwatchers ... eansunfish

- Janna

oldsalt wrote:I've seen a salmon shark in the San Juans

This comment cut through the deafening din that is my life at the moment and punched me right in the face.

airsix wrote:

oldsalt wrote:I've seen a salmon shark in the San Juans

This comment cut through the deafening din that is my life at the moment and punched me right in the face.

Yes, please tell us about your salmon shark sighting Curt! When I used to troll in Alaska we would occasionally catch them and there were lots of times we'd get huge bites and bring up straightened hooks. The BBC has two videos of them taking salmon at the mouth of a spawning stream: http://www.arkive.org/salmon-shark/lamn ... eo-00.html

They are very fast and powerful predators. I don't think I would enjoy seeing one under water

Ross (archaeofish)

nwscubamom wrote:Tigers in the San Juans - yes, absolutely. Chinas though? I haven't seen one ever, but I think Pete says he did.

Pete says he has seen one at Point Lawrence @80', and one at Davidson Rock @120' (Wayne Palsson thinks he saw the same fish during a drop-cam survey). Also claims to have witnessed a Canary at Keystone.

whatevah wrote:

nwscubamom wrote:Tigers in the San Juans - yes, absolutely. Chinas though? I haven't seen one ever, but I think Pete says he did.

Pete says he has seen one at Point Lawrence @80', and one at Davidson Rock @120' (Wayne Palsson thinks he saw the same fish during a drop-cam survey). Also claims to have witnessed a Canary at Keystone.

I saw Canary at Keystone:

Cool Jan! I think at Keystone we are witnessing the occasional jumping of the sills by species which are more typically found out in the straits. My suspicion is that species like Tiger, Bocaccio etc are not typically found in the sound proper because it isn't really the right kind of environment for them - but for brief periods in the past there have been small populations present because there just happened to be a rare combination of conditions and recruitment that pushed some in from outside.