Rockfish ID

[the rockfish ninja]

Even the Ninja gets stumped every once in a while. I've caught many of the RF species but I've never seen one of these. You?

[Gfish]

Hmmm, those pink spots have godda be something significant.
Gopher rockfish...?

[jurelometer]

Pretty sure it is a Gopher too - gonna look it up...  My vote is Gopher Rockfish (Sebastes carnatus).



They look quite a bit like Quillback, which apparently are no-retention now in California.  My rockfish ID chops aren't what they used to be, but I happepened to see a bunch of Quillback up close recently.

A handy ID chart:

https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=222200

-J

[Swami805]

Yup looks like a gopher to me. How deep were you fishing?  Don't usually see them super deep

[Gfish]

Yeah, good shore fishing Rockfish. Great eating. So many species... Picture a big trawl net full of mostly Rockfish dumped on the deck and you're the biologist that has to identify them all.