"What a marvelous piece of work! I have used it to identify fish that I prepare as skeletons for the Smithsonian. Everyone connected with the production of the book deserves the heartiest of congratulations. Val Kells must surely be one of the best scientific illustrators of all time." ––Storrs Olson, Smithsonian Institution
"A fresh splash of well-designed, beautifully illustrated information in a field-guide friendly book." ––Carl Safina, author of Song of the Blue Ocean
"A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes will soon become my go to reference book. Val Kells and Kent Carpenter have combined their talents and wealth of experience to produce an accurate, easy-to-use field guide that clearly explains and shows a reader how to correctly identify coastal fishes. This book is a must have item for anyone who works with or has an interest in fish, fishing, and the marine environment. After seeing this book, I’ve discovered I need two copies; one for my office and one for my boat!"––Joe Malat, Joe Malat Communications
"If you haven't seen this publication, it is by far the best guide I've ever seen for fishes of this region with 100% original color illustrations which are large enough for easy comparison. In addition, the diagnostic characteristics are on the opposing page, not far away in the text."––Ron Kernehan, American Fisheries Society
"A compact and wide-ranging resource; truly, a labor of love. The product of over 15 years of research from conception to publication, it is the first comprehensive field guide to the fish of the marine and brackish waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to be published in more than 25 years... I highly recommend this book."––Beth Hester, Virginia Wildlife Magazine
"Exquisite color illustrations... A great reference that is accessible for a wide audience."––Caleb D. McMahan, Copeia (Ichthyology and Herpetology Magazine)
"Significant and news worthy... comprehensive and compact... A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes is a must have book for any serious angler."––Coastal Angler Magazine
"This is a substantial improvement on the Peterson Field Guide... Val Kells’s illustrations are vivid and beautiful. The comprehensiveness of this text, along with the amount of detail in both illustration and text, are impressive. For these reasons, along with the very reasonable price, I would recommend this book to my colleagues in the scientific community, as well as to my fishing and diving companions."––Bulletin of Marine Science
"A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes is a resource that shouldn't be overlooked for any student of marine life."––Midwest Book Review
"This book is a wonderful identification guide... It will make an excellent addition to any tying library both for its detailed baitfish illustrations as well as a tool for catch identification and research."––Stuart Patterson, Florida Fly Fishing Magazine
"Magnificent book. Thank you Val and Kent for this labor of extraordinarily detailed, painstaking and accurate artwork/scientific illustration inseparable. It is the go-to reference of images and complementary text."––John Karges, The Nature Conservancy, Texas Chapter
"This book will soon become your go-to identification guide, and is compact and durable enough with water resistant pages to throw in your dive bag, fishing tackle box, or field sampling gear. Together with Kells’s previous book on fishes from Maine to Texas, you will be prepared to identify almost any coastal species you come across in the continental United States."––Ichthyology and Herpetology Magazine
"No one creates as beautiful coloured illustrations of marine fishes... I recommend all libraries consider adding it to their collection."––Reference Reviews
"An up-to-date, well-organized, and beautifully illustrated compact field guide to fishes of the Pacific U.S. and Canada covering shallow (less than 200 m) coastal brackish and marine fishes. Organized by orders and families, it contains descriptions of features, habitats, biology, and wonderful, detailed color drawings of each species. This will become the new reference for the region."––Gregor Cailliet, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
"Destined to become the classic guide to fishes of the Pacific coast for generations of fish aficionados."––Milton Love, University of California, Santa Barbara
"Having fished the Pacific coast my entire life, I've never seen anything that even comes close to this incredible book. Clean, straightforward and easy to read. The consummate guide to our waters. The dead-nuts-on accurate and absolutely beautiful illustrations alone are worth the price of admission."––Michael Fowlkes, Executive Producer, Fox Spots / WFN Inside Sportfishing
"Ed Ricketts would have been proud of the dedication that went into this field guide. Quality illustrations and easy-to-read text make this book a must-have for any fisherman, diver, or aquarist."––Randy Hamilton, Vice President of Husbandry, Monterey Bay Aquarium
"A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes: From Alaska to California is a most welcome addition to the books on fishes of the West Coast. Identifying features of nearly 700 species are primarily based on details of coloration, beautifully illustrated by Val Kells' vibrant color paintings that seem to jump off the page. This book and A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes: From Maine to Texas, also illustrated by Kells, provide complete coverage of all shallow-water marine fishes from the continental United States. Professional ichthyologists and amateur fish enthusiasts alike will want to own copies of these beautifully illustrated guides to the country's marine fishes."––Phillip Hastings, Professor and Curator of Marine Vertebrates, Scripps Institute of Oceanography