The First Midshipman:
On March 27th, 2004 while kayak fishing in the San Diego Harbor I landed my first ever midshipman fish also known as the California singing fish, pictured above. While it put up an admirable fight on the light tackle I was using and I've heard they are very tasty, those weren't the sources of my pleasure. You see the midshipman is a very rare catch here in the bay. I only know personally of one or, at the most, two other kayak fishermen that have caught one of these fish. I've fished the bay now for several years and this is the only one I've ever actually seen first-hand. Every now and again there will be a report of one being caught, but they are so rare that usually the person catching them doesn't even know what they are.

I found this one near the top of a steep bank while bottom fishing with a 3" smelt. At first I thought I'd snagged the bottom and then after much tugging there was a cloud of mud and the fight was on. After doing a little research I discovered that the dominant male midshipman excavate a cavity like nest under rocks and so I surmise that the smelt, in an effort to escape, was seeking shelter in the same hole that a large male had taken up residence in.

Like most rock fish, the midshipman is both beautiful and spooky looking at the same time. The fish is elegantly decorated with long winding rows of finely detailed small buttons, which is where it gets its name from. The spooky part of the fish is its unmistakable rattlesnake eyes and pronounced upper and lower fangs. The midshipman is mostly head with a long narrow wedge-shaped body. There is a long dorsal fin that runs the full length of the body ending only where it meets the fish's odd little round shaped tail.

This fish was pretty much a mystery to me until I discovered that the male midshipman fish is quite a hummer that comes into the bay each summer to mate and hatch eggs. The rest of the time it lives deep in the Pacific which would help to explain why so few are ever encountered by the local yakers.

Material referenced: Cornell News

John Pawlack ~ aka "Eagle Eye"