All rockfish, or species of the genus Sebastes, are ovovivparous. This means that these fish give birth to live young after internal fertilization. There have been unconfirmed ages of fish at 114 years. If a fish is captured and relocated elsewhere, it will quickly return to its original home site. Rockfish feed on a variety of food items.
Juveniles eat primarily plankton, such as small crustaceans and copepods, as well as fish eggs.
Larger rockfish eat fish such as sand lance, herring, and small rockfish, as well as crustaceans. The shelf demersal species of Southeast Alaska started to be exploited by local shore-based fishers just before 1980. The benefits of catching rockfish have not gone unnoticed by sport fishers, either. The interest in and harvest of these fish have both increased in recent years, although generally they are much less preferred than salmon and halibut. The majority of the recreational harvest of rockfish occurs near Seward in Resurrection Bay and in the Ketchikan and Sitka sport fisheries in Southeast Alaska.