Fish in the Bay – Special Report: Lower South Bay Broodstock Trawls, Jan-Feb 2025 – Pictures at an Exhibition, A Fish Opera.

This is a third and final report on 2025 Longfin Smelt Broodstock Trawls.  I was not present at most of the Broodstock events.  Instead, UC Davis team members sent phone camera photos of their most interesting by-catches.  This report features ten charismatic fishes, some of which we rarely or never see during monthly monitoring.

It struck me that these fish portraits could be linkable to Modest Mussorgsky’s concerto “Pictures at an Exhibition.”  The concerto was Mussorgsky’s musical interpretation of ten paintings he viewed during his visit to an exhibition of his dear deceased friend’s art collection in 1875.

• Pictures at an Exhibition (complete) / Modest Mussorgsky / Semyon Bychkov / Oslo Philharmonic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwJMpQiqCm4.   
• This is a stretch, but bear with me.

The piece begins with “The Promenade”.   It is the connecting theme throughout the concerto.

• From Google AI: “The purpose of the Promenade theme … is to symbolize the composer’s journey through an art exhibition. This musical piece skillfully captures the experience of walking from one artwork to another in commemoration of Mussorgsky’s friend, artist Viktor Hartmann.”

1. First exhibit: Leopard Shark – Gnomus

Claire Chung measures the Broodstock crew’s latest Leopard Shark catch.

First Leopard Shark of 2025! – We regularly catch several to a hundred Leopard Sharks in regular trawls per year but mostly during warm months.  Leopard Sharks tend to be scarce or absent during the first few cold months of the year.   

• Leopard Sharks search the muddy bottom for worms, clams, small bottom fishes and shrimp. They migrate in and out of the Bay with the seasons.  In Lower South Bay, big females give live birth to 10 or so pups in the warm season.  These sharks are always on the move but never at a terribly hurried pace.
• Adult Leopards (3-foot minimum length) are very good eating if processed quickly. The delicate texture of the light meat is comparable to scallops.  

Leopard Sharks are gorgeous, and they are unsuitable for life in a small aquarium. 

• I used to visit an old school aquarium store downtown when I was young. A show tank in the store featured a young Leopard Shark about three feet long.  The Shark looked so cool, but it never moved much.  Diagnosis: suicidal depression. 
• A Leopard Shark will never be happy confined in a small tank.
• 2007 – Prosecutors Net Leopard-Shark Smugglers https://www.npr.org/2007/02/13/7379593/prosecutors-net-leopard-shark-smugglers “Federal officials have broken up a major wildlife smuggling ring . … The smugglers pulled thousands of baby leopard sharks from the bay, then sold the live sharks to pet stores and private buyers around the world. 
  Thompson’s products were baby leopard sharks fresh from the San Francisco Bay. Customers paid up to $40 for each of the one- to two-foot sharks.  …  Federal officials say Thompson ran a poaching gang that may have removed as many as 10,000 baby leopard sharks from San Francisco Bay.”  – Shameful!   Don’t be like Thompson.

Second Promenade

2. Second exhibit: Big Skate – Il vecchio castello

Alex Lama hefting up Big Skate #1 on 30 Jan.

Big Skate.  Alex and Clair caught two Big Skates in different Broodstock trawls in late January and early February.  We had never seen this fish in LSB before!

Big Skates look similar to Shovelnose Guitarfish we occasionally find in LSB:  The translucent pointed snouts look similar as do the single rows of short “thorns” (a.k.a. “Denticles” – really just hard bumps) extending along the back and tail.

• Shovelnose guitarfish (Pseudobatos productus)  https://www.joelsartore.com/ani046-00085/
• Big skate (Beringraja binoculata– a.k.a: Raja binoculata)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_skate#/media/File:Raja_binoculata_dorsal.jpg

Claire Chung releasing Big Skate #2 a week later.

Big Skate biology.

• Florida Museum: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/species-profiles/big-skate/#:~:text=In%20waters%20from%20the%20intertidal,on%20sandy%20and%20muddy%20bottoms.   “… the big skate is found along the coast in estuaries, bays, and over the continental shelf. Although this skate is sometimes observed in low stands of kelp, it is more common on sandy and muddy bottoms.”
• Monterey Bay Aquarium: https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/big-skate   “The big skate hides in the sand and mud on the seafloor, with only its eyes protruding. Its gray, mottled body blends into the seafloor. This camouflage protects it from larger predators like sharks.  … It is the largest skate in North America.”
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_skate  “… the pectoral fins are sold as “skate wings” and are eaten baked or fried, often being labeled as imitation scallops. In the 1990s, the market value of skate wings rose to US$0.40-$1.00 per pound, and catches of the big skate off California increased 10-fold as the trawl fishery began marketing its skate and ray bycatch.”

Third Promenade

3. Showy Snailfish – Tuileries 

Showy Snailfish.  This is only the third Snailfish we have ever seen in LSB: one in 2014, another in December 2024, and now this one. 

• Snailfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snailfish

As explained last December, most Snailfishes live in the deepest oceans.  Showy Snailfish is one of the oddball varieties that inhabit tidepools on the coast.

• Snailfish are similar to “clingfishes” in the sense that they have a sucker disk on the dorsal side that they use to cling to rocks and hard surfaces.   
• More amazingly, the several longest rays of the Showy’s pelvic fins can be independently maneuvered to work as feelers. They look like hands when the Showy is using them!  

4. Plainfin Midshipman – Bydlo. Cattle

Plainfin Midshipman.  Niko Floros and Feng Zhao caught this first Midshipman at Coy4.  He was large by LSB standards.  He may have been seeking one or more females to lay eggs in his burrow since this is Plainfin spawning season.

• Male Midshipmen (a.k.a. “Singing Toadfish”) hum continuously for up to two hours when they are calling for mates.
• This fish glows in the dark. The tiny white dots you can see near his face, over his operculum, and along his tail are bioluminescent.

A week later, Jim Hobbs and Sami Araya picked up a second Midshipman.  This one was really skinny.  He looks emaciated. 

• Plainfin Midshipman males guard and tend eggs for almost a month without eating. The male eats only after he is satisfied that the eggs hatched and the babies can take care of themselves.      
• This burned-out male needs to find a meal fast!

Fourth Promenade (Mussorgsky inserted “promenades” only between certain exhibits.)

5. Longjaw Mudsucker – Ballet of Unhatched Chicks

Longjaw Mudsucker.  We presume this big Mudsucker from Pond A19 is a female mainly because of her full and gravid-looking belly.  The hinge of her long jaw extends back to edge of her operculum, which is fairly long for a Mudsucker.  Big males eventually grow an even longer jaw that extends past the operculum.

• At some point soon, she needs to find a safe place to deposit her eggs. Males defend their personal spawning grottos amongst Pickleweed or Bulrush roots along the marsh shore.  They fiercely compete for her attention. 
• Like Midshipmen discussed above, male Mudsuckers protect fertilized clutches of eggs for weeks without eating. (This behavior seems to be near universal amongst Gobiids, Sculpins, Midshipmen, and various other brownish bottom fishes.) 

Think of Mudsuckers as “frogs of the fish world.”  Like frogs and other amphibians, they can respire in the air for up to a day or two.  This is a very useful adaptation that allows them to live in warm shallow occasionally oxygen-depleted marshes and where tides frequently leave them high-and-dry above the waterline.

Is the jaw longer in male Mudsuckers? – Some say, yes. Others say, maybe not!

• Crabtree (1985). Sexual Dimorphism of the Upper Jaw in Gillichthys mirabilis.  (link not available)
  “…  the longjaw mudsucker, is easily recognized because of the posteriorly elongated maxillaries. Although expressed in both males and females, this feature is more conspicuous in the males. … The primary function of this feature appears to be its use in sexual behavior: display and territorial defense.”
• Milan et al (2023). Heterochrony and the evolution of the Longjaw Mudsucker …
  We were unable to confirm an earlier hypothesis of sexual dimorphism in the jaw length of G. mirabilis. The evolution of the elongated jaws and associated large buccopharyngeal membrane in G. mirabilis is hypothesized to increase the surface area for gas exchange during aerial respiration and may also serve to amplify the aggressive gaping display as observed in other fishes.

6. Pacific Herring – “Samuel” Goldenberg & “Schmuÿle”

Pacific Herring.  The crew caught this Herring adult on January 29^th.  We see baby and yearling Herring in LSB every year, but adults swim way too fast for slow-moving otter trawls towed by a noisy boat.

• A few clusters of fish eggs were collected in Pond A21 in February.
• Then during regular monthly trawls in March, we picked up at least 16 baby Herring that were no more than a few weeks old.

Conclusion: Only a few stray adult Herring venture all the way south into LSB for spawning.

• The big Herring spawn happens in North Bay.  https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2025/01/07/cdfw-invites-you-to-report-herring-spawning-activity-to-help-monitor-herring-populations/ 

Fifth Promenade

7. Longfin Smelt babies – Limoges. The Market (The Great News)

Longfin Smelt babies.  This was very good news.  We had been worried that the Longfin spawn of winter 2024/25 might have been a complete bust.  But then, at least two baby Longfins, shown above, were found at station Coy2 on Feb 24^th. 

• At least some Longfin spawning and recruitment appears to have happened. Longfins will return!

8. Sacramento Sucker – Catacombs (Roman Tomb)

Claire Chung holding an adult Sacramento Sucker.

Sacramento Sucker.  Suckers are native river fishes.  They occasionally wander far enough downstream to be caught in our otter trawls.  We only see them after some rain. 

• Subsistence fishing for Sacramento sucker. “Although suckers are not typically thought of as a food source, historical records indicate that many different tribes harvested sucker species for consumption. One such example is the Ajumawi tribe of the Pit River in northeastern California, who harvested the native Sacramento sucker (Catostomus occidentalis).”
• Sac State – Sacramento Sucker. https://www.csus.edu/faculty/c/rcoleman/natural%20history%20museums/sacramento_state_online_natural_history_museum/fishes/sacramento_sucker.html “… suckers have “papilose” lips, meaning lips with enlarged bumps that allow them to detect food. …  the Sacramento Sucker, is the only sucker found in the Lower American River.  It might not surprise you to learn that the Modoc Sucker is found in Modoc County in the far northeast, the Tahoe Sucker is found in the Lahontan drainage system (near Tahoe), etc.

9. Pacific Lamprey – Baba Yaga

Pacific Lamprey.  We usually catch a few Lamprey in early spring.  They are always juveniles, like this one, in their “macropthalmia” (“big eye”) stage of life.  This one is migrating out to sea after living as a filter-feeding worm-like Ammocoete in upstream creek soil for the last several years.

• An ancient triad: Lampreys, Salmon, and Sturgeon.
  • Larval lampreys (Ammocoetes) oxygenate creek sediment and filter the water. Once they reach the Macropthalmia stage they migrate out to sea to feed on Salmon and other big fishes.
  • Adult Lampreys return and deliver organic nutrients to the same creeks where Salmon spawn.
  • Sturgeon feed on Lampreys when they can find them.

• USFWS – Pacific Lamprey. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/npnht/learningcenter/history-culture/?cid=stelprd3833880#:~:text=Pacific%20Lamprey%20Life%20Cycle%3A&text=Ammocoetes%20live%20in%20silt%2Fsand,and%20feed%20on%20host%20fish .     
  “Ammocoetes live in silt/sand substrates and filter feed for 3 – 7 years. Larvae transform to juveniles (macropthalmia) and migrate to the ocean. Adults develop teeth on sucking disk for parasitic feeding. Adults live in ocean 1-3 years and feed on host fish.”
• The Pacific Lamprey – Salmon’s Excellent Friend by Dave Vedder. https://salmontroutsteelheader.com/blogs/articles/the-pacific-lamprey-salmon-s-excellent-friend-by-dave-vedder 
  “The Pacific lamprey begins its live cycle when an adult female deposits as many as 230,000 eggs, typically in midsummer.  Many of these eggs overflow the nest and become food for trout, salmon smolts, and other river dwellers. The larvae sink into silty river beds and soft banks where they feed on microscopic nutrients for as long as six years.”

Lampreys and Suckers tell us that cool clean freshwater creeks are flowing far upstream!     

10. White Sturgeon – The Bogatyr Gates / The Great Gate of Kiev

Claire Chung and Feng Zhao managing river monsters in February.

White Sturgeon.  Two Sturgeon were caught during LSB Broodstock trawls.  We see them all the time in sonar displays.  Every once in a while, we actually catch one.

A mixed blessing:  It is very exciting to catch such a big fish.  But, our first concern is always – how we are going to get this big fish out of the net – measured – and returned to the creek without injury to either the fish or the human handlers. 

• Sturgeon are ancient armored fishes. Their family tree extends back at least 300 million years.  Backs and sides are covered in rows of sharp bony osteoderms, a.k.a “scutes.”  
• How Fish Evolved Their Bony, Scaly Armor (2023). https://www.bbe.caltech.edu/news/how-fish-evolved-their-bony-scaly-armor   “Protective coatings like these helped vertebrates survive and evolve further into new animals and ultimately humans.”
• Stundl et al (2023). Ancient vertebrate dermal armor evolved from trunk neural crest. “Together, our results support a primitive skeletogenic role for the neural crest along the entire body axis, that was later progressively restricted to the cranial region during vertebrate evolution.”
• Always wear gloves or other hand protection if you plan to grab a thrashing Sturgeon by the tail.

11. A Deep Rabbit Hole.

Modest Mussorgsky from Wikipedia.

I did not realize the deep rabbit hole involved in linking Mussorgsky’s masterpiece to our modest collection of fish pictures. (See what I did there?)

    a) Technically, this cannot be called a ‘fish opera’ since there are no lyrics for singers. However, this problem could be solved by inserting lyrics from the 1970’s progressive rock rendition by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP):
Emerson, Lake & Palmer // Mussorgsky – Pictures At An Exhibition  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsU1ttA4Z4g&t=2073s

    b) I also had no idea how many versions of Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ are available on Youtube. – For example:

1. 1. Hard Rock version: Mekong Delta – Pictures at an Exhibition [Full Album] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzbrsx8C6bY 
   2. Acoustic guitar version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8Ghy1Pz2k
   3. Piano interpretation by Evgeny Kissin: (my favorite, by far)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH_Rsl7fjok
   4. Plus, a great many orchestral performances.

    c) The story of this master composition is compelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_at_an_Exhibition.  The original 1874 art exhibition in Saint Petersburg was not particularly notable, but through Mussorgsky, the event continues to inspire.

    d) Modest Mussorgsky himself, a tortured artist who died at the young age of 42, continues to be celebrated.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Modest-Mussorgsky “Mussorgsky’s importance to and influence on later composers are quite out of proportion to his relatively small output. Few composers were less derivative, or evolved so original and bold a style. The 65 songs he composed, many to his own texts, describe scenes of Russian life with great vividness and insight …”

Inspiration. noun:  “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.