<< Cool! Wish I would have seen it. The presence of rock bass suggests that
it
was one of the shallower wrecks, and that the sculpins were either slimy or
"mottled" sculpins. You wouldn't mistake either spoonhead or deepwater
sculpins for these- the median fins on the deepwater are HUGE, with the
membranes deeply incised between the rays, and they have big bony knobs on
the top of their head. The spoonhead (as the name suggests) has an
incredibly flattened head, and long, recurved preopercular spines.
>>
I'm pretty sure it was a shallow wreck, as I know that they've had other
episodes with shallow-water wrecks. My memory of the sculpins is rather vague
(wish I'd known about the show beforehand ; I would've vidoetaped it ), but
I'm guessing that they were slimy sculpins. They didn't seem to resemble
mottled sculpins, although from what I've read they are variable in
appearance because of their wide range.I must admit I don't know what parts
of the U.S. the sculpins I've seen photos of come from. For that matter I
imagine that throughout both peninsulas of Michigan and the Great Lakes there
could be some distinct differences in appearance or at least behaviour from
widely geographically separated populations within just this area. I've seen
one photo of the deepwater sculpin on the NFC photo gallery and would like to
see more.I've never seen any photos of the spoonhead sculpin. They both sound
very interesting, even for sculpins which I think are an interesting group of
fishes to begin with.
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