Northwest Dive Club

I was doing my normal Friday afternoon dive plan at Sund Rock yesterday.

Splashed about 4:30 or so. Very low tide. Did a long surface swim out and dropped down about 80' or so. Continued down and hit a large set of boulders at about 155'. Much to my surprise and delight this individual was among the rockfish among the rocks...

I saw one here (Sund Rock, not this precise site) once before, but was on a training deep dive and did not get photos. These are my first photos of a Puget Sound Yelloweye Rockfish.

The Yelloweye is making a good comeback in the Canal.
I have seen quite a few in the last year.
Most are juveniles but a few nice one's also.
I think you see more the further north you go.
On a dive I did at Rosie's I counted 4 on one dive.They were in that 110-140ft range.
I have seen a few though in only 40ft of water.

Fantastic!

Fabulous!

(I thought you mean Yelloweye on the board!)

What a great find, and such excellent photographs! Congratulations, and thanks for sharing this.

So cool!

And it's an adult hopefully ready to make more! Past my depth though.

WOW! Can you see them at shallower depths? Diving to 155 ft is out of the question from me :(!

I saw a beauty at Sund (who knows, maybe the same one?!) at about 40fsw, but that was in a low O2 event. It was awesome to see, but the low O2 events are undesirable so it took some of the joy out of it.

Biodiversity_Guy wrote:I was doing my normal Friday afternoon dive plan at Sund Rock yesterday.

Splashed about 4:30 or so. Very low tide. Did a long surface swim out and dropped down about 80' or so. Continued down and hit a large set of boulders at about 155'. Much to my surprise and delight this individual was among the rockfish among the rocks...

I saw one here (Sund Rock, not this precise site) once before, but was on a training deep dive and did not get photos. These are my first photos of a Puget Sound Yelloweye Rockfish.

rockfish yelloweye IMG_3701_sm.jpg

Rockfish yelloweye IMG_3707_sm.jpg

rockfish yelloweye IMG_3709_sm.jpg

rockfish yelloweye_sm.jpg

Thanks David

Have seen them in the past at 130 or so at the shallowest under normal conditions, below the small patch of cloud sponges between North Wall and the wreck.

Good Diving,
Jerry

What an awesome sighting!! And what's more, it was nice and deep, like it should be, and even better, like Rich said, it's getting to be a more mature one so hopefully it will make bebes!!!
- Janna

Tubesnout23 wrote:WOW! Can you see them at shallower depths? Diving to 155 ft is out of the question from me :(!

The juveniles are fairly common in 50-100ft depths throughout the Canal. They look nothing like the adults though. They are a deep red with 2 white stripes and typically about the size of your palm or hand.

I hope we start to see juvenile yelloweyes on a regular basis.
The first (and only time) I have seen one in Hood Canal, it was so out of place with its tropical colors I was stoked!