Linda Mar SALMON - Sun 8/21

Brian,

Any idea what this thing is?  A friend caught it last weekend just south of Ano.
Its got diamond shaped fins like a Pacific butt, but I believe its in the sole family (dover, petrale, english, etc).

Stuart

Yeah, I'd go with sole on that one as well, probably an english sole like the one Mooch posted.


Fish geek warning!   Don't read any further if learning to identify fish isn't your thing.


For flatfish, I usually pay attention to a few key characters.

1.) Eyes... i.e. left-eyed or right-eyed.  In this case your fish is right-eyed.  As you know flatfish basically lay on their sides and have both of their eyes on one side.  In this case, the fish is lying on it's left side and the top of the fish (where the eyes are) is on the right side.

Sanddabs, fantail sole, and bigmouth sole are all left-handed.  Most everything else around here is right-handed.  

However, California Halibut and Starry Flounder can be either left or right handed.
 
2.) Mouth size ... some flatfish are piscivorous (fish eaters) and others are benthic eaters (worms, etc..).   The flatfish that eat other fish have big mouths often with teeth like halibut, bigmouth sole, flathead sole, petrale sole, and sanddabs.  Everything else has a little mouth like the fish you posted.

3.) The shape of the lateral line.....  The lateral line is the line of pores that runs along the center of the fish from head to tail.  Look to see if it's straight, arched, or branched.  Halibut have arched lateral lines, turbots and some soles may have branched lateral lines, and most everything else has a single straight line.

4.) Tail shape.. indented or truncate probably a halibut, most everything else has a rounded or pointed tail.

5.) Finally coloration .....  Starry flounder have that orange and black pattern on their dorsal and anal fins.  C-O turbut have a dark c-o pattern on their tail.  Diamond turbot have blue spots.

I don't have all of this memorized and you don't need to bother, all you really need to know are the california halibut (left or right eyed, truncate tail, arched lateral line, large mouth with teeth) and the pacific halibut (right eyed, arched lateral line, large mouth with teeth, diamond shaped body and fins, tail slightly indented).  

For every other flounder, sole, turbot, sanddab, etc.. all you need to figure out is whether you can get a filet off of it or not.  If you want to know what it is take a photo and maybe some notes on which side the eyes are on, the shape of the tail, lateral line, and mouth, and any unusual color patterns and drop me an e-mail and I'll see if I can help.

Brian

Ok Brian.  I’ve got one more for you, but no picture.

I caught a flatfish about 2 years ago.  I was fishing for sand dabs in 60 feet when I landed this unusual fish.  It was very round in shape.  Noticeable different than a butt or a dab.  The color was also more of a grayish color, rather than brownish.
It was maybe 16”-18” and had pretty sharp teeth like a butt.  No idea if it were left or right eyed.

Going from memory, this was different than the above picture, mainly from the body shape and the coloration.  Any idea what this one was??

Stuart

Nice job!

The fl atty is definitely a sole. I think it could be a Petrale Sole. Just because of the faint dark bloches and the pink on the dorsal and anal fins.

But,  that's just my observation from the pic. There all tasty fair to me

my guess...Rock sole

I believe petrals have a larger mouth than that, but rock sole isn't a bad guess.  I went with english sole because of the eye.  You should be able to just see the top eye of an english sole from the blind side and on this picture it looks like the eye is hanging over the edge enough that it might be seen from the blind side.  If the fish was in front of me I'd have to start counting gill rakers, fin rays and lateral line pores.  Once I've identified a fish a few times the slow methodical way, I find I start to get a feel for them and can identify them on sight.  I'm still working my way through the West Coast flatfish.  Next on my list are the surfperch.

But other than that I agree with you, very tasty.  Also probably very wormy, (see Sean's posting on Sashimi) but nothing a closer look at the filets can't figure out.


Brian