The shortraker rockfish was first formally described in 1970 by the Soviet ichthyologist Vladimir Viktorovich Barsukov with the type locality given as the North Pacific at 57°41'N, 150°00'W at a depth of 270–310 m (890–1,020 ft).

In the Gulf of Alaska, shortraker rockfish are sampled annually during longline surveys and are most abundant between depths of 300–400 metres (980–1,310 ft).

[4] Commercial harvesting in the Gulf of Alaska began in the early 1960s when foreign trawl fleets were targeting more abundant species.

[7] Fishermen report that shortrakers school off-bottom and above rugged habitat in steep-slope areas where bottom trawls cannot sample effectively.

However, the method is only accurate in temperate regions, where variances between warm and cool season growth rates create distinct ring borders.

[8] However, as shortraker rockfish caught off Sitka are regarded as coming from waters along the boundary of temperate and arctic regions annual growth rings can be slightly discernible.

[12][13][14][15] In 2013, Henry Liebman, a sport fisherman from Seattle, caught a specimen from 900 feet (270 m) below the surface and 10 miles (16 km) offshore near Sitka, Alaska.