Northwest Dive Club

I picked up this little guy at about 90' down at Sund Rock on Sunday. Went through the books, but did not see anything that felt like this guy. The closest I came was to the unknown sculpin on page 225 of Andy Lamb's 2nd edition of Coastal Fishes.

Notice the long growth on his/her nose...

Well, I'm guessing here, and will happily stand corrected, but it looks like it belongs to the genus Icelinus at least. But it doesn't seem to match any one of them exactly. It looks a lot like a Fringed or a Northern, but the dorsal fin doesn't seem right for those. I'll bet Greg or Andy can figure it out.

- Janna

It is always fun to find a "head-scratcher"

I'm leaning heavily toward a fringed sculpin, because some pictures clearly show a large, multi-pointed nasal cirrus. It doesn't have as many cirri on the eye and jaw as fringed normally have, but that could be because it's a small one.

Thank you! I will be going out again this weekend. Hope to encounter it (or kin) again, and will try to get better shots. These are pretty poor.

Greg, have you found Fringed in Hood Canal at all?

I've never found one anywhere.