Where have all the fishies gone?

[pnbooth]

Seems like all winter I have been hearing comments from other divers (as well as witnessing first hand) about the disappearing act by lots of critters at local Seattle metro-area dive sites. Rockfish are few and far between, gunnels and most sculpins nonexistent, and many inverts. have also been scarce. What happened? Is it the inordinate amount of freshwater reducing salinities at rec. diving depths? Is it the water temps. hovering in the low to mid-40s? Or is it something more ominous? I want to hear from some real experts out there, please. I have noticed this as Cove 2, Three Tree North, Mukilteo, Redondo, and even at Edmonds UP (with the exception of the monster lings and cabbys).

[Grateful Diver]

Seems like all winter I have been hearing comments from other divers (as well as witnessing first hand) about the disappearing act by lots of critters at local Seattle metro-area dive sites. Rockfish are few and far between, gunnels and most sculpins nonexistent, and many inverts. have also been scarce. What happened? Is it the inordinate amount of freshwater reducing salinities at rec. diving depths? Is it the water temps. hovering in the low to mid-40s? Or is it something more ominous? I want to hear from some real experts out there, please. I have noticed this as Cove 2, Three Tree North, Mukilteo, Redondo, and even at Edmonds UP (with the exception of the monster lings and cabbys).

I suspect it's the runoff ... I mean, would YOU want to live in that nasty stuff? Lings and cabbies tend to be homies ... especially in winter when guarding their eggs. Other critters, less so. My guess ... particularly since I'm still seeing pretty much "normal" levels in other locations that are further away from urban areas ... is that an overly wet few months has put so much runoff pollution in the water that the critters who could seek better accommodations went looking for them ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Joshua Smith]

Yeah, but what about the epic numbers of GPOs at cove 2 this year? That was pretty amazing.

[Tom Nic]

Have you been hearing that it's more than normal?

Fishies always seem to pull a disappearing act in the Winter, then, VOILA! Back in the Summer...

[lamont]

don't know about recently (past month), but when i first started diving there weren't any black rockfish at all at cove 2, and now its common to see schools of them down around olive's den...