Sportfishing (Rockfish)

Rockfish are a diversere and important group of marine fishes. Of 115 species of rockfish known world wide 97 of those can be found in the North Eastern Pacific. (In a range from Mexico to the Bering Sea). Their habitats vary in depth from very shallow tidal waters to thousands of feet deep. For that reason only about a dozen are within reach of hook and line fishers.

These fish are characterized by bony plates or spines on the head and body, a large mouth and pelvic fins attached forward near the pectoral fins. The spines are venomous and although not extremely toxic can still cause pain and infection. Some species are brightly colored and many others are difficult to distinguish from each other. Rockfishes are some what perch or bass-like in appearance and are often called seabass. All species have white flesh that is delicious to eat.

Also, rockfish have a type of swim bladder that uses a special gas-producing and absorbing gland to change the volume of gas in the swim bladder, which is used to maintain buoyancy at different depths in the water. This type of swim bladder is easily damaged when a fish is subjected to sudden changes in water pressure, such as when it is brought to the surface. The gas gland does not have enough time to absorb the gas in the swim bladder as the gas expands with a decrease in water pressure. Consequently, the swim bladder gets so large that it is too large for the fish's body cavity and it literally explodes out through the mouth of the rockfish. Countless rockfish are wasted when they are caught incidentally by fishers seeking other fish and are thrown back in the water.

Rockfish in our area can be divided into three ecological groups: shelf demersal, or those species that live in the nearshore, shallower waters, in rocky bottom areas shelf pelagic, or those species that also live mostly in the nearshore, shallower continental shelf waters, but that spend much of their time up in the water column and off the bottom, and slope, or those species that live in deeper waters, on the edge of the continental shelf.

Rockfish are extremely slow growing Rockfishes are slow-growing and extremely long-lived. Black rockfishes (Sebastes melanops), a common pelagic species, become sexually mature at about 10 years of age and have been aged to 40 years. Yelloweye rockfish( Sebastes ruberrimus), a shelf demersal rockfish, are a longer-lived species, becoming sexually mature around 15 years of age and living in excess of 100 years. There have been unconfirmed ages of fish at 114 years.

All rockfish, or species of the genus Sebastes, are ovoviviparous. This means that these fish give birth to live young after internal fertilization.

Food habits: Rockfish feed on a variety of food items. Juveniles eat primarily plankton, such as small crustaceans and copepods, as well as fish eggs. Larger rockfish eat fish such as sand lance, herring, and small rockfish, as well as crustaceans.

Species common to our area: Black, Blue, Quillback, Copper, Tiger Stripe, Vermilion, Canary, Yelloweye, Widow, Olive (or Yellowtail).

Yelloweye and Canary Rockfish are endangered and are not allowed to be retained.

More information to come on the other fisheries, Ling Cod, Halibut, Salmon, Tuna etc.

The Gray Whale

Coloration: Gray whales are so because of their mottled gray coloration. The natual pigmentation can range from almost black to almost white and can have spots that range from the size a marble to a basketball. This mottled appearance is enhanced by barnacles. barnacle scars, and whale lice.

Rostrum (Head): The rostrum extends from the tip of the snout to the blowholes a length of about 6 feet. The head area is covered with barnacles and whale lice. Gray whales that feed on the bottom rub off barnacles and leave barnacle scars. Young gray whales have a dimped rostrum with one hair in each dimple.

The most conspicuous identifying characteristics of gray whales are their size, distinctive mottled gray coloring, dorsal hump (no dorsal fin) and the knuckles along the back of the dorsal hump.
Gray whales range in size from 35-45 feet long and 30-40 tons, about the length of a school bus and the weight of ten elephants. Females weigh more and are longer than adult males.

Blow: The gray whales blow is about 6-10 feet high and is heart shaped if seen from behind on a calm day. About 100 gallons of air is expelled from the blow at speeds of 150-200 miles per hour.

Blowholes: Gray whales have two blowholes like all baleen whales.

Baleen Plates: There are 300 blonde colored baleen plates about one foot long that hang from the top jaw. Bristles on the inside edges of these plates trap food.

Throat Grooves: Two to five throat grooves on the bottom of the throat expand when the whales are feeding.

Flippers: Behind the throat grooves are pointed paddle shaped flippers.

Eyes: The eyes of the gray whale are brown in color and the size of an orange. The eyes are located at the end of the mouth line, 7-8 feet from the rostrum tip, gray whales have very good eyesight.

Dorsal Hump: Gray whales don't have a dorsal fin, instead they have a dorsal hump on the back.

Knuckles: 6-12 bumps called knuckles are seen behind the gray whales dorsal hump. In some whales these are very distinct and in others they are not. Sometimes the distance between each knuckle can help you identify individual gray whales.

Tail Fluke: An adults tail fluke is about 9 feet wide. Each fluke has a pattern which can help you identify individual whales.

Flukeprint: A large circle of smooth water formed by the tail fluke when the tail fluke goes under the surface for a dive.

Saturn

Saturn is a ball of hydrogen and helium gas wrapped around a dense, rocky core. Saturn spins so fast that it bulges outward at the equator, so the planet is much thicker at the equator than through the poles.

Saturn’s clouds are colored in subtle shades of yellow and tan. Saturn's rapid rotation and its layered structure produce a magnetic field. Observations by the Cassini spacecraft suggest that the field may be changing, which could mean that Saturn's interior is changing as well. Cassini monitored radio waves produced by the magnetic field as a way to measure Saturn's rotation rate. (Because Saturn has no solid surface, it's impossible to measure its rotation by tracking surface features like mountains or canyons.) But the craft found that the rotation rate appeared to have slowed by about six minutes since the Voyager missions two decades earlier. Scientists believe that Saturn is not actually slowing down. Instead, one possible explanation says that changes in the planet's core are creating changes in the magnetic field.

Saturn's clouds contain ammonia, methane, and other toxic compounds. They are buffeted by winds of up to 1,000 miles (1,600 km) per hour, and they contain violent storm systems that produce lightning blasts a million times more powerful than those on Earth.
Saturn's most prominent feature, though, is its extensive ring system.
Galileo Galilei discovered the rings in the early 17th century.

In his small, crude telescope, though, they looked like "bumps" on the side of the planet. Five decades later, Dutch astronomer Christaan Huygens, who had recently discovered Saturn's largest moon, Titan, detected a bit of space between Saturn and the bumps. He deduced that the bumps were really planet-circling rings.

Today, astronomers know that thousands of individual rings make up Saturn's ring system. Some rings are made of small bits of frozen water, others contain tiny grains of dust, and still others are a mixture of the two. In all, the rings are only a few hundred feet thick. Several small moons orbit inside or just outside the ring system. These "shepherd" satellites help keep the ring particles in place, but they also sculpt some rings into odd shapes, with twists and kinks.
Saturn's rings probably formed when a small moon or a comet passed close to Saturn and was pulled apart by the planet's gravity.

Although Saturn has no solid surface to stand on, humans may someday view its rings from close range. They may walk on some of its icy moons or even float above Saturn's clouds in big balloons. From such a lofty vantage point, the rings would form wide, sparkling bands across the sky. Sometimes, icy particles from the inner edge of Saturn's rings may fall into the planet's atmosphere, creating bright "shooting stars" as they streak through the sky of this delicate giant.

Astronomy (Sept. 15th and 16th 2009)

Venus, the “morning star,” is to the lower left of the Moon at first light on the 15th, with Mars above the Moon. Venus is close to the left of the Moon on the 16th. Regulus is to their lower left.

Leo, the Lion
The zodiacal constellation Leo, the lion, is one of a handful of constellations that really does look like its namesake. Look for Leo high in south in April and May.

Leo's brightest star is blue-white Regulus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Regulus rises almost due east, with the body of the lion following it into the sky over the next couple of hours. Once Regulus climbs into the sky, look to its left toward the north for a group of stars forming a backward question mark. These stars outline Leo's head and mane.

About two hours later, look low in the east for Leo's tail a white star named Denebola an Arabic name that, means "tail of the lion."

Astronomy (Sept. 13th and 14th 2009)

September 13-14, 2009
Mars rises just below the Moon on the morning of the 13th (around 1-2 a.m.), and a little farther above it on the 14th. Pollux and Castor, the twin stars of Gemini, align to the left of the Moon on the 14th.

Gemini, the Twins
Gemini is easy to find as it glides high overhead in mid-winter, above and to the left of Orion. It's two brightest stars Castor and Pollux represent the mythological twins brothers of Helen of Troy.

Many cultures have seen two humans in this star pattern marked by two roughly parallel lines of stars capped by two of the brightest stars in our night sky. But the legend that endures is that of Castor and Pollux. Gemini's two brightest stars bear the names of the twins.

Pollux is the brighter of the twins. It's an orange giant star that's about 35 light-years from Earth. Castor consists of six stars, a cosmic sextet locked in a gravitational ballet. This crowded system lies about 50 light-years from Earth.

Constellations, Sagittarius and Scorpius

Sagittarius, the Archer Sagittarius, the archer, whose brightest stars form the shape of a teapot slides low across the southern sky of summer. Sagittarius has drawn his bow, and his arrow is pointing at Antares, the bright red heart of Scorpius, the scorpion. The archer is avenging Orion, who was slain by the scorpion's sting.

The constellation Sagittarius is one of the most interesting regions of the sky. The center of our Milky Way galaxy lies inside Sagittarius, about 26,000 light years away. The constellation also contains several globular clusters tightly packed collections of hundreds of thousands of stars.

Antares
Antares is a yellow-orange supergiant star 600 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.
The star Antares marks the "heart" of Scorpius, the scorpion. It is the brightest star in Scorpius. It's the most difficult to see in the early twilight, but as the sky gets darker, it stands out more. Antares also stands out because of its color. While most of the stars show little or no color, Antares is a vivid orange. That's the result of its surface temperature, which is thousands of degrees cooler than the Sun.

But Antares is a supergiant star, one of the biggest and most massive in our part of the galaxy, so its interior is millions of degrees hotter than the Sun's interior. Like most supergiants, Antares is likely to end its life with a bang, it'll explode as a supernova. That could happen anytime within the next few million years, or as early as tonight.

Scorpius, the Scorpion Three bright stars form the "head" of Scorpius, the celestial scorpion, while its tail curves away below it in the southern sky of summer.

The brightest star in Scorpius is Antares, which is in the middle of the scorpion's curving body. This brilliant red star is one of the behemoths of our stellar neighborhood. If you placed it at the center of our own solar system, it would swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and almost reach Jupiter.

Aquila, the Eagle

There are 88 constellations covering the entire northern and southern sky.
Aquila, the Eagle: Aquila glides on outstretched wings through the glowing band of the Milky Way. Look for it high in the south in late summer.

The brightest star in Aquila is a white star about 16 light-years from Earth called Altair, the Arabic word for eagle. Altair is the southern point of a pattern of three bright stars called the Summer Triangle. Deneb, in the constellation Cygnus, forms the triangle's northeastern point. Vega, in Lyra, the harp, is in the northwest. Altair is nice and bright and easy to find right up to the beginning of winter.

Cygnus, the Swan: The brightest stars of Cygnus form a cross, so the swan is also known as the Northern Cross. Find it soaring high overhead during late summer evenings.

The constellation's brightest star is Deneb, an Arabic word that means "the tail." Deneb the tail of the swan, marks the top of the cross. The swan's outstretched wings form the horizontal bar of the cross, while the head of the swan, a double star called Albireo is the bottom of the cross.

Although it lies about 1,500 light years from Earth, Deneb shines brightly in our night sky because it's a white supergiant, a star that's much larger, hotter, and brighter than the Sun. Deneb is the northeastern point of a star pattern called the Summer Triangle.

If you use binoculars to scan the area between the two bright stars that define the swan's eastern wing, you'll see the remnant of a supernova a faint, incomplete ring of light called the Cygnus Loop.

Lyra, the Harp: It's easy to find Lyra, the harp, by first finding Vega one of the brightest stars in Earth's night sky. Look for Vega high overhead in mid-summer. Lyra looks like a small, lopsided square, with Vega just beside one of the corners of the square.