Fising for Greenling and Rockfish

Anybody know what this fish is?

Courtney and a little black rockfish

Nicole catching another rockfish

Don't let anybody at the dock see this catch (it's a little embarrassing to come home with a red irish lord)

Yesterday I went out in John's skiff with some friends to go fishing in the name of research. They are studying modern and ancient near-shore food webs and needed samples of fish that live in kelp forests. They particularly wanted greenling and black rockfish. All seven of us got in the skiff in the morning and quickly realized non of us really had much of an idea about how to fish for these things. Luckily catching near-shore fish isn't particularly difficult and we started pulling fish up right away. Unfortunately none of us really knows much about identifying rockfish and greenlings either (at least not with flesh on them!). It would have been helpful to have a Field Guide to Common Marine Fishes and Invertebrates of Alaska, but my copy is in Seattle and it is now out of print. But we caught quite a few things that should be useful for their research.

In between fishing spots we stopped on Long Island to walk around the WWII ruins and check out the sea lions.