Northwest Dive Club

I was in a meeting with a bunch of local agencies (NOAA, WDFW, MRCs) today regarding Rockfish monitoring, and one of the questions that arose during the meeting was when are gravid (pregnant) rockfish found in Washington, and finding a relationship between sightings of juvenile Rockfish after that.

There may be different times in different areas within Puget Sound, Hood Canal, Whidbey Basin, San Juan Islands, etc.that Rockfish breed.

So, with that in mind, I offered to 'crowd source' photographer sightings of pregnant rockfish (and Young of Year/juvenile rockfish if you have any). I'll go through my old photos, find pics of pregnant rockfish, and note the date and dive site, and ask you guys to do the same.
Please post Photo, Date taken, and dive site.
(You don't need to know what species it is - we can ID it if you don't know.)
Thanks!
- Janna

Hi Janna,

Here is a picture of gravid Copper Rockfish taken in the area of Friday Harbor on April 6th 2014.

We were on Bandito Charter out of Anacortes. We did 2 dives one was along Canoe Island (between Shaw and Lopez Islands) and second was referred as a Pinnacle Rock (Submerged 30 feet down rock closer to Friday Harbor).
The visibility was not very good.
This picture also was taken with my older SeaLife DC800 camera on the second dive - referred as Pinnacle Rock.

Please click once for zoom and second time for max resolution.
Please note that Jan K may have a collection of gravid Rockfish (Copper, Brown, Quillback) from Possession Point Fingers (South end of Whidbey Island) as he posted one set on June 3rd 2012 in "Whidbey Island Critters" blog:
http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewtopic.php ... 50#p213438

I will still check if I can find more pictures that I have not marked neither as "pregnant" or "gravid".

Hi Janna,

I searched through my over 21 thousand pictures database (1 year period).
I found 782 pictures that contain at least one Rockfish.
Some pictures may not have right angle to say if the Rockfish is gravid or not.
I found 36 pictures where the area of the belly is rounded enough to determined that most likely the rockfish is gravid.
As this forum only allows to post 14 pictures at a time I will post 14 most supporting the following analysis and I will send to you an Excel sheet directly (this forum does not allow to submit neither .xls not .txt extensions).

Some analysis:

1. The earliest gravid rockfish in the spring was observed on 3/24/14 at Salt Water State Park - Copper Rockfish

2. Second observed was on Pinnacle Rock (sailing out of Anacortes I mentioned in my first response)- Copper Rockfish

3. Third observed at Possession Point Fingers on 4/14/14 - Copper Rockfish

4. Fourth at Keystone 4/23/14 - Black Rockfish

5. then I have many sightings & many pictures of Brown, Copper & Quillback gravid (and one Black Rockfish suspected) at Possession Point Fingers on following dates: 5/5/14, 5/8/14, 5/13/14 & 5/30/14

6. one Brown and one Black suspected gravid at Whidbey Island Driftwood Park on 5/27/14

7. one Yellow Tail suspected gravid at Fidalgo Island Rosario Head on 8/20/14 -they are usually very slender, this one looked much more rounded but not as much as other Rockfish

8. one Yellow Tail suspected gravid at Whidbey Island Possession Point Fingers on 8/27/14

9. several gravid Brown at Whidbey Island Driftwood Park on 9/16/14

Pictures sorted in the order of the report from the oldest (taken early in the year) to the latest.
Make sure you click on each picture once to enlarge and second time for max resolution.

I have used 3 different cameras (one DC800 and two DC1400). I usually take one camera on the first dive of the day and second camera on the second dive of the day.

List of the file names as they appear above, location, date, date modified (if adjusted):


PICT0988-copper-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC800\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\032414-Salt-Water-St-Park-alone 1,538 KB 3/24/2014 21:29 PICT2722-copper-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\041414-Possession-Point-Fingers 1,664 KB 4/14/2014 21:01 PICT1961-black-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC800\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\042314-keystone-alone 1,242 KB 4/24/2014 14:20
Black might be gravid in this picture. PICT3514-copper-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\050514-Possession-Point-Fingers 1,028 KB 5/5/2014 11:38 PICT0390-brown-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\050514-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,061 KB 5/5/2014 20:07 PICT3908-brown-&copper-rockfish-copper-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\050814-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,719 KB 5/8/2014 13:24
Actually both Copper & Brown Rockfish are gravid in this picture.
PICT4106-quillback-rockfish-gravid-pygmy-crabs-painted-greenling.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\051314-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,744 KB 5/13/2014 11:02 PICT1157-brown-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\051314-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,060 KB 5/13/2014 20:39 PICT2153-black-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC800\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\053014-Possession-Point-Fingers 1,431 KB 6/2/2014 18:50
Black might be gravid in this picture. PICT2152-quilback-&copper-rockfish-gravid-copper-&quillback.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\053014-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,934 KB 6/2/2014 19:39 PICT2021-rockfish-schooling-gravid-black.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\052714-Driftwood-Park 2,373 KB 6/2/2014 20:04
Actually both one Black might be gravid & at least one Brown Rockfish is gravid in this picture. PICT4015-yellowtail-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\082014-Rosario-Head 3,080 KB 8/20/2014 14:19
Yellow Tail might be gravid in this picture. PICT4326-PS-&yellow-tail-rockfish-gravid.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400_2\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\082514-Possession-Point-Fingers 2,208 KB 8/25/2014 12:58
Yellow Tail might be gravid in this picture. PICT8149-brown-rockfish-school-gravid-brown.JPG C:\Backup-pictures\2014\SeaLifeDC1400\DCIM\100DSCIM\modified-pics\091614-Driftwood-Park 2,463 KB 9/16/2014 14:16

Great info and photos, Marek! Thank you for all your help with this.
- Janna

Janna,

I was diving Saltwater State Park reefs yesterday (January 3, 2015) and came across this very gravid Black Rockfish. I remembered this post and thought I'd share it.



In addition, there was a very colorful Vermilion as well. I don't recall seeing one this far south before. (My red focus light really saturated the orange coloration of the fish)



At one point the Vermilion got into a fight with a Copper over some territory....


Dan

Followup to this:
Join me for an online "Fishinar" that will cover 12 common Young of Year Rockfish and how to ID them.
Tuesday August 11th, 7pm Pacific time.
www.REEF.org/fishinars

- Janna

Lots of preggo Puget Sound rockfish at the Pinnacle today