Black Rockfish

The black rockfish attains a maximum total length of 63 cm (25 in) and has a maximum published weight of 4.8 kg (11 lb). It has a fusiform body which is deep and laterally compressed. The head is weakly spined with only the nasal spines always present while the preocular and postocular spines are normally absent and the supraocular, tympanic, coronal, parietal and nuchal spines are always absent. The head eyes are moderately large eyes with a bulge in the intraorbital space and the upper jaw reaches to the posterior margin of the eye. They have a continuous dorsal fin which contains 13-14 spines and 13-16 soft rays. The membranes between the spines are deelply incised. The anal fin has a rounded posterior profile and contains 3 spines and 7-9 soft rays. The caudal fin is truncate to emarginate.

The black rockfish is found in the northeastern Pacific Ocean from Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to Santa Monica Bay in California. There have been two records of this species from the Iwate Prefecture of northern Japan.

The black rockfish is a prime target for anglers, and a reproductive rate unusually high for its slow-growing genus makes it more resistant to fishing than its cousins, such as the yelloweye rockfish, are. They are harvested in Oregon, California, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, and the Pacific. They are a fairly common catch along the West Coast of North America, where populations are stable.

Schools of adults often aggregate over rocky bottoms or at the sea surface, habits that make them susceptible to targeted fishing.