Spearfishing Stats

Taxonomy

Rarity

Striped bass are not a California fish. They are an Atlantic fish that has been living here since 1879, when 132 young bass from the Navesink River in New Jersey were carried across the country by rail and released into the San Francisco Bay estuary at Carquinez Strait. A second release of 300 fish from the Shrewsbury River followed in 1882. What happened next was a population explosion. Commercial harvest started in the early 1880s, passed 1 million pounds a year by the turn of the century, and peaked above 2 million pounds in 1903.

The trajectory since has been long and downward. Between 1969 and 1996 the catch fell alongside the population, from about 444,000 fish in 1975 to 52,000 in 1994, and the early 1960s catch had probably been near 750,000. The clearest measure is the count of young fish. California has surveyed young-of-the-year striped bass every summer since 1959, and the index ran above 100 in the mid-1960s and hit an all-time low of 1.4 in 1998. Between 1959 and 1976 the average abundance of young bass was more than 3 times what came after. Reduced production of juveniles, not heavy fishing on adults, was identified as the principal cause of the decline.

The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern, assessed in 2019, and that figure needs a caveat attached to it. It is a global assessment of a fish native to the Atlantic coast of North America. It says nothing about the California population, which is introduced, has been in decline for 50 years, and stopped receiving hatchery support in 2001.

Regulations

CDFW rules verified 2026-09-06

Seasonality

Edibility

Location

In its native range, striped bass live along the western Atlantic from the St. Lawrence River in Quebec south to Louisiana. In California the population that matters is the San Francisco Bay estuary, and everything about the fish's movement runs through that system. Striped bass are anadromous, which means they live in salt water and go up into fresh water to breed. Tag returns show that many adults spend the summer in salt water, in San Pablo Bay, in San Francisco Bay, and in the open Pacific, with the proportion that goes out to the ocean varying year to year, and then start moving back into the Delta in the fall.

The species has been put in other California water as well, in the lower Colorado River, in reservoirs, and in the ocean off southern California. Most of those places do not work for breeding. Conditions are generally unsuitable for spawning in the reservoirs or in southern California marine water, so those fisheries have depended on hatchery stocking rather than on reproduction, and that stocking ended in 2001. Millerton and New Hogan are the exceptions, 2 reservoirs that do hold self-reproducing populations. For a diver, the practical version is simple: a wild California striped bass is a northern California fish.

Where the fish are within that system has moved around more than once. Before the late 1950s there was almost no fishing for them in San Francisco Bay or the ocean. From the late 1950s into the early 1980s the post-spawning fish ran farther downstream and stayed longer, and bay and ocean fishing improved while Delta fishing fell off. In the 1980s and much of the 1990s the pattern reversed and moved back upstream. In 1998 and 1999 it swung out to the bay and ocean again. The state's own assessment is that the data are not sufficient to explain why.

Spearfishing Brief

California names spearfishing as a legal method of take in the striped bass regulation itself, which is unusual. The rule lists exactly 3 ways the species may be taken, being angling, spearfishing, and bow and arrow tackle, and it declares snagging illegal outright. Very few species get that specific a treatment. Spearfishing for striped bass is also permitted seasonally in some inland waters, from May 1 through September 15 in the Valley District and Black Butte Lake, which is a rare inland spearfishing allowance in a state that mostly forbids it.

That said, no written California spearfishing account for the species turned up in any source consulted, so the ratings below are reasoned from documented behavior rather than from a diver's report.

The search rates a 3. Striped bass are not camouflaged and they are not cryptic, so this is not the black croaker or diamond turbot problem. It is a coverage problem. Adults roam seasonally between the Delta, the bays and the open coast, the water they use is estuary water with limited visibility, and where they were last month is not necessarily where they are now. Finding one takes searching rather than sharp eyes.

The shot rates a 4, and this is the axis that sets the difficulty. Striped bass are fast, heavy predators that hold no structure. They can pass 50 pounds and 4 feet, they take herring, eels, sand lance, squid and crabs at speed, and there is nothing on the bottom to pin one against. In turbid estuary water the window between seeing a fish and losing it is short, which is the definition of the 4 rung: very wary, fast, or deep, with a short window and often a single chance. Overall difficulty is 4.

One legal detail applies directly to this fish. Striped bass concentrate at river and creek mouths, and California prohibits possessing or using a spear within 100 yards of the mouth of any stream in ocean waters north of Ventura County. Since the entire California population lives north of Ventura County, that rule is not a footnote here.

On the table the species is excellent, and the sources that describe it are consistent. Cooked striped bass is white, moderately firm and large-flaked, with a slightly sweet, briny flavor, and it is regularly called the best eating of any bass. Saltwater fish are rated well above fish taken from fresh water, which is a real difference and not a preference. The fish is thick-bodied with clean flanks, so the fillets are among the easiest in this Ichthyopedia to cut and among the thickest to come off. Anglers who write about it point to 18 to 28 inches, or 3 to 8 pounds, as the size range with the best combination of flavor and texture. One thing to know before eating one: striped bass is covered by California's statewide health advisory for fish that migrate, and the state's own fishing booklet links to it. What that advisory says is not restated here, because the page could not be read for this entry. A reader who plans to eat these fish regularly should go read it.

Deep Dive

The California striped bass fishery was closed to commercial fishing in 1935, and the reason is the most interesting thing in its history, because the stock was not in trouble. The state says so directly. The closure came out of a fight between sport and commercial interests rather than out of a conservation finding. That same conflict carried on for another 2 decades and ended with the closure of the commercial gillnet fisheries for chinook salmon and American shad in 1957, and the striped bass angle on that closure is worth following: thousands of striped bass that could not legally be sold were being killed every year in nets set for those other 2 species, and shutting those fisheries reduced striped bass mortality by an amount nobody can estimate, because nobody knows how large the incidental kill actually was. By 1985 an economist put the annual value of the sport fishery at more than 47 million dollars.

The reproductive strategy explains both the explosion and the decline. Striped bass spawn in fresh water with a moderate to swift current, starting when the water reaches 60 degrees and mostly between 61 and 69, from April into mid-June. Most of it happens on 2 grounds: the San Joaquin River between the Antioch bridge and the mouth of the Middle River, and the Sacramento River between Sacramento and Colusa, with roughly 50 to 66 percent of the eggs going into the Sacramento. The spawning happens in schools at night during warm spells. State biologists once watched several thousand fish at the surface above Knights Landing, in small clusters of 3 to 6 splashing in the main current, 5 or more clusters going at once, each with a large female and several smaller males around her.

The eggs are the vulnerable part. Inside the female they are about 0.04 inch across. On release they take on water and swell to about 0.13 inch, and they become so clear they are nearly invisible. They are only slightly heavier than water, which means a current holds them suspended while they develop and still water lets them sink to the bottom and die. Hatching takes about 2 days, faster in warmer water. The larvae live on their yolk for a week, switch to tiny crustaceans, then to opossum shrimp and amphipods, which are small shrimp-like crustaceans, and reach about 2 inches by late July or August, all of it happening in the Delta and Suisun Bay.

A fish whose eggs must stay suspended in flowing fresh water is a fish whose reproduction depends on how much water is moving through the Delta. That is exactly what the early analysis found. Between 1959 and 1970 the annual swings in young-bass abundance could be predicted from Delta freshwater outflow alone, with far better production in high-outflow years. One proposed mechanism is that in a high-flow year a smaller share of the water entering the Delta gets pulled into the state and federal water projects and into local agricultural diversions, so fewer young fish are drawn out of the estuary along with it. The striped bass in San Francisco Bay is therefore an Atlantic fish whose California population size is tied to how California moves its water.

The numbers on reproduction show why the species could take hold from 132 individuals in the first place. A 5-pound, 5-year-old female may release as many as 250,000 eggs in a season. A 12-pound, 8-year-old fish can produce over a million. Fish that live past 20 years may exceed 50 pounds and spawn several million eggs each. Females do not spawn until their 5th year, at 22 to 25 inches, while many males mature at 2 and about 11 inches. California's 18-inch minimum size north of Point Conception, Santa Barbara therefore protects most males through maturity and no females at all.

Those rules have tightened over time, which is its own record of the decline. From 1956 to 1981 the minimum size was 16 inches and the bag limit was 3 fish. Before 1956 it was generally a 12-inch minimum and 5 fish. Today it is 18 inches and 2 fish north of Point Conception, and no minimum size at all to the south, where the fish essentially do not exist.

Where to Find Them

Beaches whose habitats match this species

No tracked beaches share this species' habitat tags yet.