Rockfish Prevalance

[Buckhunter24]

Has anyone caught any of the less common rockfish of the list below? I get out 1 to 3 times a year for the last 20 years and it seems like 99 percent have been the copper rockfish for me.

[Crunchy]

I dont pay much attention to rockfish unless I am in an area I can keep them.  I fish mainly areas 11 and 13 with some time in 6.  Usually catch a couple a year mainly when jigging for salmon.  They are a tasty fish for sure.

[WAcoueshunter]

Yes, in and around MA 4, China, Blue, Black, Canary, Yelloweye, Quillback, Copper and Yellowtail are all common.  Don't recall catching Tiger or Boccaccio.  Not sure about Vermillion. 

[Stein]

Chinas are pretty common and quilback a bit less.

[WSU]

Depends on where.  I've caught quite a few and really don't do a ton of fishing that would involve rock fish (halibut, ling, etc.). 

[James]

I have caught all of those but the Boccaccio in MA3 and 4.

[Mfowl]

I've caught everything but the tiger rockfish out in the ocean from Neah Bay.

[Buzz2401]

Caught every single one of those out of Neah.  The Boccaccio are usually deep.

[lokidog]

Depends where you are fishing as you can see from posts. Area 6 and up you will mostly find Coppers and Quillbacks. I have caught one Black on the south End of Lopez. We've also caught one Tiger, a couple of China and one adult and one juvenile Canary in Area 7. We've caught two unknown small ones while trolling 150' deep in 400 feet of water off of San Juan.

On a permit with Kwiaht.org, I've tagged over 200 in the last four years, all Coppers and Quills plus the one Black. If you ever see one with an orange spaghetti tag, please measure and report it. I have yet to catch one of my tagged ones though.

[fishngamereaper]

I just wish we could keep more of them. They are thick on the coast. Some of the Yellow Eye, Bocca's and Quil's are 10-15 lbs easy, with some 20's mixed in. The coppers and quils are also thick along the shore coming down the straights. I would rather keep a couple of those as opposed to a little black or blue.

[Hilltop123]

Back in the 80's, it was nothing to put 20 blacks in the boat, in a evening. If you knew where to fish, bet I could go back today and they'd still be there. This was in MA9.

[lokidog]

The closure inside is simply a knee-jerk lazy reaction by WDFW (pretty typical actually) to the Feds listing three of them as endangered. The 120' depth restriction was sufficient in preventing large numbers from being caught as bycatch. The halibut fishery likely catches many more Yelloweye and Canary than the Rockfish fishery. In fourteen years of bottomfishing here, we have boated exactly three endangered ones out of probably a thousand brought up.

[dilleytech]

I have caught at least one of all of those when I fish around neah bay as a kid. Lots of diversity and very healthy populations.

[fowl smacker]

I've caught everything but the tiger rockfish out in the ocean from Neah Bay.

Same