Let’s All Jump for YOY!

(photo: S. Jeffries)

You may think the title of this post is a typo, but YOY actually stands for “young of the year,” which are age-zero fish, or those that were born within the past year.  These little guys are KGB rockfish, which means that they are Kelp, Gopher, Black and Yellow, or Copper rockfish.  You probably already figured it out, but KGB comes from the Kelp, Gopher, and Black part of this complex – we identify them as “KGBs” because the species are hard, if not impossible to tell apart at this age.  Last year in late spring and early summer, the kelp forests were teeming with these guys.  If you managed to get out on the water, you might have noticed them hanging out in the kelp forest canopies, one of the places they go for cover.