Brown Rockfish aka Bolina
I was browsing Instagram the other day and some guy was trying to call his reds (aka vermilion rockfish) “Bolina”. My first thought was, “What the f is bolina?” So I did a little research and found that bolina is primarily a market term that refers to the brown rockfish (and sometimes other rockfish that aren’t red or orange). Ah, brown rockfish, I just caught one of those last week on that release trip. So I posted the above picture in response. Still waiting to hear back… 😉
Anyway, the scientific name for this fish is Sebastes Auriculatus. Auriculatus means “eared” in Latin, referring to the dark splotch on the gill plate (ear area?) that distinguishes this species. One of the comments on the picture I posted was that they catch smaller models of this fish off the Goleta Pier. That behavior is consistent with the information I dug up saying these fish tend to congregate inshore by structure, then move to deeper water as they grow. This particular fish was caught in about 200 feet of water and measured out to 45 cm (@ 17.5″), which is close to the max size of 22 inches for these fish. I wasn’t able to keep and eat the fish since it was a release trip, but I imagine the meat is consistent with that of other rockfish…a firm, mild, white meat.
By the way, the plastic in the picture is the Zman Jerk Shadz in Nuked Chicken Glow pattern. On last week’s trip, I caught the 2 biggest fish of the trip on these baits. I have been testing out some different baits from Zman Fishing and so far so good. I’ll be doing a Gear Review post on them soon. Stay tuned. Tight lines!
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