ID help with a small fish

Fish & Invertebrate sightings and descriptions, hosted by resident NWDC ID expert Janna Nichols (nwscubamom).
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LCF
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ID help with a small fish

Post by LCF »

Yesterday, at Northwest Island, it seemed as though every sheltered crack in the rock had a whole bunch (a dozen or more) small, brown fish. They were long and slender (but not tubesnout-shaped), one to two inches long and probably less than a half inch tall. They were also VERY skittish, and although I tried for pictures, I didn't get any good ones. The two I'm showing here are not very good pictures, but given what was going on, I'm happy I got them at all.

Are these very, very juvenile rockfish, or something else altogether? They were not sitting on structure like a sculpin but were schooled in the water column.

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Tom Nic
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Tom Nic »

They look like YOY (young of year) Rockfish.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Jan K »

+ 1
Keystone right now is full of all kinds of rockfish ( I think) youngsters ..
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LCF
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by LCF »

That's what I thought they probably were, but man, they were small!
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Dusty2 »

Always tough to ID YOY. that's why they have a separate designation for them. They can be so different from the adults. The inside of the barge a Hudson looks like an aquarium right with the schools of new baby fishes and they don't seem to be to afraid either. Not to many adults around so I guess it's an official nursery.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Tom Nic »

LCF wrote:That's what I thought they probably were, but man, they were small!
On some of the REEF AAT trips Janna and a couple of other folks have busted out I'D slides for Young of Year Rockfish. Different species have very different YOY coloration - for the most part very distinct to the species. A good side on photo can generally be identified and there are even categories on the I'D forms for YOY Canary, or YOY Copper, etc.

So far that is a bit beyond my paygrade, however. I will look them up if I get a good YOY shot, but they can be hard to come by.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Tom Nic »

Dusty2 wrote:Always tough to ID YOY. that's why they have a separate designation for them. They can be so different from the adults. The inside of the barge a Hudson looks like an aquarium right with the schools of new baby fishes and they don't seem to be to afraid either. Not to many adults around so I guess it's an official nursery.
You should work on getting good side shots of them. You will see patterns emergingng and I bet we can get most of them identified.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by Dusty2 »

I was planning to do some video Saturday but none of my regular buddies showed so I got lazy and went back to the trailer. Us old dudes need our beauty rest. :rawlings:
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LCF
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by LCF »

I tried and tried to get a side-on photo, but these guys were SO small, and moving around SO much, that the camera simply couldn't get focus lock on them.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by nwscubamom »

Hey Lynne,
Did those guys rest on the rock or were they free-swimming?
The shape from above almost looks like a really pale Longfin Sculpin. Without a side shot it's hard to tell the proportions though.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by LCF »

They were free swimming, and definitely in groups of a dozen or more. Shaped more like a long-finned sculpin than a rockfish, though.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by nwscubamom »

Since you say they're free-swimming, that sounds a lot more like a YOY Rockfish than a sculpin.
YOY Blacks and Yellowtails (and probably Blue-Sided too) are pretty long and slender, so that's a possibility.
So that might be what you saw, because they do love to hang out under rocks and such. They also have a pretty prominent black dorsal spot though, so next time you see them look for that.
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Re: ID help with a small fish

Post by LCF »

Those MUCH better photos certainly look like what I saw -- groups of very small fish in the niches in the rocks. But the individual I captured clearly doesn't have a black dorsal spot. In the words from one of my favorite movies, "Tis a mystery!"
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