Spearfishing Stats

Taxonomy

Rarity

Northern anchovy are one of the most abundant fish on the west coast, and NOAA describes the coastal ocean of recent years as dominated by a booming anchovy population. A diver who has swum into a bait ball off southern California has met more anchovies in 10 seconds than most people meet fish in a lifetime.

The conservation listing does not match that picture, and the reason is a gap in the science rather than a problem with the fish. The International Union for Conservation of Nature assessed the species in 2020 and returned Data Deficient, meaning the assessors did not have enough information to place it in a category. NOAA is in a similar position. There are 2 United States stocks, a northern one off Oregon and Washington and a central and southern one running from California into Baja California, and neither gets a formal stock assessment. Overfished status is listed as unknown for both, though NOAA thinks both are abundant and neither is subject to overfishing on 2025 catch data. The southern stock was looked at in 2022 and there was not enough data to estimate its size. Ship surveys have run annually since 2016, so the picture is improving.

California places no daily limit on anchovy at all, alongside sardine, the smelts and the mackerels.

Regulations

CDFW rules verified 2026-09-07

Seasonality

Edibility

Location

Northern anchovy live from northern Vancouver Island south to Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Baja California, and they are most abundant between Point Conception, Santa Barbara and Point San Juanico in Baja. They are a fish of open coastal water rather than reef or bottom, usually holding within about 20 miles of the beach, though schools have been recorded as far as 300 miles out. They also come into bays and inlets, and one of the 2 recognized subspecies lives specifically in California bays.

The schools are the animal. Anchovies form large, tightly packed masses that behave as a single body, and that packing is a defense: a predator has trouble picking one fish out of thousands moving together. They have been recorded down to about 1,000 feet and usually stay in the top 700.

Feeding works 2 ways. An anchovy can swim with its mouth open and filter plankton out of the water at random, or it can pick individual animals off one at a time, which fisheries scientists describe as pecking. The food is krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called copepods, and the larvae of crabs and shrimps. A fish that eats plankton and gets eaten by nearly everything larger is the definition of a forage fish, and this one feeds recreationally and commercially important fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Common thresher sharks hunt them directly, along with sardine, hake, mackerel and squid.

Spearfishing Brief

Nobody spears an anchovy, and this section says so rather than inventing a technique for a 6 inch fish.

Finding them rates a 1, and that is not a compliment to the hunter. Anchovy schools are enormous, they are common in southern California coastal water year-round, and a diver does not locate them so much as end up inside one. The schools are visible from the surface, and from a boat they show as dark patches with birds working above them.

The shot rates a 5 for the simple reason that it cannot be taken. A 6 inch fish inside a moving wall of identical 6 inch fish is not a spearfishing target under any gear, and California's rules do not contemplate one. Recreational take of anchovy is done with a dip net, a cast net, or a multi-hook bait rig, and it is done to fill a bait tank. The commercial fishery uses round haul gear, and in 2024 it landed nearly 10 million pounds worth about $700,000, most of which went to bait and fish meal rather than to anyone's plate.

There is no bag limit, which reflects what the fish is: small, fast-growing, and replacing itself constantly. Anchovies can spawn after 2 years, females release a batch of eggs every 7 to 10 days, and the eggs hatch in 2 to 4 days. NOAA's estimate is that 45 to 55 percent of the entire stock would die of natural causes each year even with no fishing at all. A limit on a fish like that would protect nothing.

On the table, northern anchovy are the same animal sold cured in flat tins, and fresh ones grilled or fried whole are good eating. In practice almost nothing landed in California reaches a table. The flesh is oily and strongly flavored, and at 6 inches a fish is cleaned with a thumbnail rather than a knife.

Deep Dive

The northern anchovy is a small fish that most of the California coastal food web runs through, and the interesting facts about it are all about scale and speed.

Start with the life. Maturity comes at about 3.8 inches, which most fish reach inside 2 years. FishBase records a maximum age of 7 years, and NOAA notes that in practice they rarely exceed 4. The maximum recorded length is 9.8 inches and the common length is under 6. A fish that lives 4 years, matures in 2, and spawns every week or so during the season is built to be eaten in enormous numbers and to replace itself just as fast.

Spawning is a night job, and a precisely timed one. Anchovies spawn all year with a peak from February through April, and the eggs go into the upper water layers between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., in water between 50 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit. The heaviest spawning happens between Point Conception and Point San Juanico in Baja, with a second major area off central and southern Baja. Eggs hatch in 2 to 4 days.

The species is split into 2 subspecies, and the split is about geography rather than appearance. One lives along the open coast from British Columbia to Baja California. The other lives in the bays of California and stays there. Fish that stay in bays face different water and different predators from fish that live in the open ocean, and populations that stop mixing start to diverge.

The name says something about the animal too. The genus is the old Greek word for anchovy, but the species name is Latin for biting, given to a fish with a mouth that opens like a scoop and a jaw that runs back nearly past the eye. That oversized gape is the filter-feeding apparatus. It is what lets a 6 inch fish strain a mouthful of water and keep the krill in it.

What is not settled about northern anchovy is how many there are, and that is a genuinely open question rather than a formality. Neither United States stock gets a formal assessment, the 2022 look at the southern stock could not produce a population estimate, and the global conservation listing is Data Deficient. What is visible is the direction. NOAA describes the recent coastal ocean as dominated by a booming anchovy population, at the same time that Pacific sardine, the other great forage fish of this coast, sits below the biomass level that would let its fishery reopen.

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.