Spearfishing Stats

Taxonomy

Rarity

The treefish is a southern California fish, and that sets it apart from the rest of the shallow rockfish. It is common from Santa Barbara south through the Channel Islands and into Baja California, rare north of Santa Barbara, and rare in central California altogether, which is the reverse of the usual pattern for the group. California's status report calls it one of the least-studied of the shallow nearshore rockfish, alongside the China rockfish. There is no stock assessment and no IUCN Red List evaluation. What data exist point in an unusual direction for a nearshore rockfish: recreational landings of treefish were higher between 1993 and 1999 than they had been between 1980 and 1989, while catches of the other 5 shallow species were falling. Divers see them constantly. A southern California reef with deep cracks in it usually has treefish in the cracks.

Regulations

CDFW rules verified 2026-08-27

Seasonality

Edibility

Location

Treefish live from San Francisco south to Isla Cedros in central Baja California, on high-relief rocky reef and in kelp forest, in both exposed and sheltered rock. The deepest record is about 348 feet, but that number describes an outlier. The fish sits shallower than 164 feet nearly everywhere it is seen, and it is most common inside about 100 feet. What matters more than the depth is the structure. A treefish wants complex rock with holes in it, and it spends the day inside one of those holes with just its head out.

It is the most recognizable rockfish on a southern California reef. The body is yellow to olive, crossed by 5 or 6 vertical black bars, with white dots and dashes scattered over it, a red-orange rim around the eye, and 2 dark bands running back from the eye. The lips are pink or red. The names people have given it all describe the same paint job: convict fish and barber pole for the bars, lipstick fish for the mouth. The head is angular and carries thick spines. As with every rockfish, those spines and the ones along the back carry mild venom, so a fish handled carelessly delivers a puncture that hurts well out of proportion to its size.

Treefish are solitary and hold territory, and aggressive displays and outright fighting between individuals have been documented since the 1970s. They are night and twilight hunters. During the day the fish is a face in a crack, which is exactly how divers photograph it, and it does not go far from that crack over its life.

Spearfishing Brief

The treefish is hard on both halves of the hunt, which is unusual for a shallow rockfish. Finding one means looking inside rock rather than across it. Treefish back into deep cracks, small caverns, undercut ledges, and the shaded gaps behind boulders, and a fish sitting in shadow with only its head out is easy to swim past even though the bars and the red lips are unmistakable once the light reaches them. A diver searching structure will turn them up. A diver scanning open water will not.

The difficulty is the fish's response to a diver. Unlike most of the reef rockfish, which sit still and tolerate a close approach, the treefish does not hold its ground. Divers who photograph the species report that in almost every frame the fish is leaving or about to leave. Combine that with where it sits, which is inside rock with only its head exposed, and the result is a small target that withdraws as the diver closes. The approach that gives the best chance is the standard one for holes: descend without noise, let the reef settle before moving in, and come at the opening from above and to the side rather than swimming straight down the line of the crack, where the fish sees the diver coming head-on.

Shot placement matters more here than on any midwater rockfish. A treefish that takes a body shot and reaches the back of its own crevice is a fish a diver cannot recover, so the shot is a spine or head shot or it is not taken. The working distance is short, and the gear matches it. Because the shot is almost always taken inside a dark hole, the setup has to be short enough to pivot in a cave: a speargun of 50 to 60 centimeters, or a 5 foot polespear. A long open-water gun is the wrong tool for a fish that lives in a hole.

A note on whether the fish is worth shooting. Treefish top out around 16 inches and 4 pounds, and the California angling record is 4 pounds 3 ounces from Malibu in 2003. Inside a 10-fish bag that also allows larger rockfish, many divers pass, though the eating quality argues the other way: this is a top-tier rockfish on the plate. The species is also a recognized rod-and-reel target, taken more often from private boats than from charter boats or shore. There is no dedicated spearfishing literature for the treefish, so the approach above rests on the documented behavior plus the general approach for reef rockfish rather than on a body of species-specific accounts.

Deep Dive

The treefish was described in 1880 by David Starr Jordan and Charles Henry Gilbert. It reaches about 16 inches and 4.2 pounds, lives at least 23 years with reports to 25, and matures early for a rockfish. Half of all treefish are mature by 7.5 to 7.8 inches, at 4 years old in females and 3 in males. The aging is recent work. As late as 2001 the California status report stated flatly that treefish had never been aged, which is a useful reminder of how thin the science on this fish still is.

Reproduction is live-bearing, as it is across the family. Fertilization happens internally, and the female releases live larvae rather than laying eggs, between March and July. The larvae and small juveniles shelter under mats of drifting kelp out in open water, and the young fish settle onto the reef between June and October. The 2001 status report said there were no data at all on when treefish spawn. That gap has since been filled, and the timing above is the answer.

Diet has been measured once, properly. Researchers examined the stomach contents of 74 treefish collected from the Southern California Bight and found that bony fishes, crabs, and caridean shrimp were the most important prey. The diet shifts with size: fish longer than 7.9 inches ate steadily more fish and steadily fewer small shrimp-like crustaceans. Other accounts add spider crabs, cancer crabs, octopus, and squid. The hunting happens at night and at twilight, from ambush, which is what a fish that spends the day watching from a crack is set up to do. Predators of the treefish itself have not been documented in the literature reviewed here, which is another consequence of how little study the species has received.

The treefish has a second career that most rockfish do not. It is one of the fish southern California divers photograph most, it is taken for the aquarium trade, and California's own status report lists it among the nearshore rockfish with significant non-consumptive value. That is what a bright yellow fish with black bars living at 40 feet gets to be.

On the plate it is excellent, and the market backs that up rather than just the cookbooks. In 1998 treefish brought $4.66 a pound to California commercial fishermen, the second-highest price paid for any rockfish in the state that year, behind only the grass rockfish. The flesh is white and very firm, and the yield off one is excellent for a fish that rarely reaches 4 pounds. Cleaning it takes a little longer than a midwater rockfish, because the head spines are thick and the body is compact. Cooking whole suits it. California law requires the skin to be left attached to any rockfish fillet at sea so the species can still be identified.

Where to Find Them

Beaches whose habitats match this species

Matched by habitat: a beach is listed when its biome tags overlap this species' biomes.