Does Ogden Point have the best rockfish diversity?

[Agamemnon]

I just dove at Ogden Point and although the vis was terrible, i found myself wondering if there is anywhere else in BC or WA that has higher diversity of fish, in particular, rockfish? Ogden pt. is awesome in this regard.

I've seen 12 different rockfish species at Ogden (black-lots, canary-many, china-1, copper-many, puget sound-lots&lots, quillback-many, silvergrey-a few, tiger-many, vermillion-many, widow-a few, yelloweye-many, yellowtail-lots) in addition to all the other great stuff (wolf eels/warbonnets/lingcod & greenlings/ratfish/octos/nudibranchs/etc etc.). Is there any other site in BC that has this many different species and in the high quantities? For example, if you are looking, you can typically count 10-20 tiger rockfish on a single dive, 5-10 yellow eye, 5-10 vermillioin and 10-20 canary rockfish. I've never seen these colorful rockfish together at any other site in a single dive, let alone in such quantities.

I guess the jumble of rocks that makes up the breakwater acts protects the young fish that drift in and that no natural dive site has as many hiding places. Anyway, even with terrible vis, it's awesome to bump into a group of large vermillions or canary rock fish or find an adult yellow-eye that has evaded the hooks to get to a decent size. I wonder if there are any other places like this? Keystone is very small in comparison, so although i did see some of the same things, no where near the quantity.

 

[MarkH]

I agree. I think the only common rockfish species I don't remember seeing there is Brown. There's a big school of widow at the end mixed in with black and yelloweye. You got lucky seeing the China. I've only seen it a few times there. Where on the breakwater was the one you saw?

 

[Agamemnon]

I saw the China rockfish only once about maybe halfway to 2/3rds down the breakwater, towards the end, at about 50-60'. It didn't budge even though i was taking pictures so it seemed like that was it's "spot". I saw on the vancouver aquarium website that they are territorial, so i have hopes of seeing it again around there.
I saw the adult yellow eye around the same area but in the rocks near the sand and have seen it on 3 occasions, several months apart, in the same spot, so that was cool to see. I read that yelloweye used to be twice as commonly caught as lingcod about 100 years ago, which would have been awesome to see as a diver.

 

[Shinythings]

I would say ogden had some of the best diversity in the area, but there are certainly larger rockfish around the wrecks. Ogden is the only place I consistently see China's and Tiger's... I would say it is the best rockfish site around Victoria.