Wolf Fish

Last year when I was in Nova Scotia I spent two weeks trying to find the Atlantic Wolffish. I failed miserably. This year on my trip out I tried for a week to get photos. One dive I came quite close, but I only saw the backside as it swam away. I have learned that they are quite different than their pacific cousins in both behaviour and temperament. On my second to last day of diving I went out to Mill Cove Wharf with directions that they are often out on the end of the wharf eating scraps from fisherman bait. I let those fishing know not to cast over me. Apparently some have thought that bubbles were a fish in the past. I went out and around the wharf and even to the left to check lines for lumpfish and then back around. After an hour of looking I came out with nothing. On a hunch I decided to go for a swim, so I set out for slightly deeper water and started poking around the boulder field. After a half an hour, I looked under a car sized boulder and a pair of eyes peered back at me. Wolffish! I spent some time trying to get photos. The strobe which I mounted my snoot on failed the preceding dive, so I was down to one basic strobe with a diffuser. I got as good of a shot as I could under the conditions and moved on to check other boulders. The next one I looked under had another wolffish. And the third one too! This is the third which was a brown shade as opposed to the blue. The are a much shorter fish and a bit angrier in appearance.