Fish in the Bay – January 2023, Part 1 – Atmospheric River Blowout.
Heavy cold rain drenched us on January 14th and 15th. We were under at least the sixth Atmospheric River that...
Fish in the Bay – December 2022 – Rain & Brown Water
We trawled in cold and intermittent rain on December 10th and 11th. This seasonal weather change is a very good...
Fish in the Bay – Special Report: Understanding H. akashiwo & the Red Tide. What Does This Strange Organism Want?
What caused H. akashiwo to bloom into a red tide frenzy in San Francisco Bay last summer? Another bloom like...
Fish in the Bay – November 2022 – Sturgeon Alert!
The disastrous San Francisco Bay Red Tide of August 2022 is now fading into memory. The most crushing long-lasting effect...
October Report – Big Bass & Guitarfish Month.
In response to concerns about fish kills from the July-September Red Tides in Central and South San Francisco Bay, I...
Fish in the Bay – September 2022, part 2 – Seaweed & Seagrass Beds inhibit Red Tides!
This is a follow-up post regarding Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and the recent H. akashiwo red tide in San Francisco...
Fish in the Bay – September 2022, Red Tide Emergency Trawls.
As we are all now aware, single-celled phytoplankton called “Heterosigma akashiwo” bloomed into a dark reddish-brown stain across much of...
Fish in the Bay – August 2022, Bat Ray Bonanza.
A slightly belated report from August trawls. At the time of this report, we were not yet aware of Red...
Fish in the Bay – August 2022, RED TIDE ALERT!
Folks, the Red Tide continues to sweep across portions of North and Central San Francisco Bay. Areas affected by dark...
Fish in the Bay – Special Report: Green Water, 6-7 Aug 2022.
This is a Fish in the Bay special report to document observations of water color in Lower South San Francisco...
Fish in the Bay – Special Report, The Year of the Shark – 2022.
Schematic distribution of the 9-10 July shark catch: 20 Leopards + 2 Brown Smoothhounds. Our block-buster shark year continues. By...
Fish in the Bay – Special Report, Color Change Experiment #7
Belated report: This Clupeiform color change experiment was conducted in December but never reported. This is part of my longstanding...
Fish in the Bay – July 2022, Palaemon Shrimp take over.
Record-breaking Palaemon Shrimp month: almost 13,000 were caught in July. The previous record monthly catch was in November 2021 when...
Fish in the Bay – June 2022, Supplemental Report, Fishes & Other Critters.
By Luca Sartori, California State Maritime Academy Class of 2025. https://www.csum.edu/ Editor’s note: Luca is spending his summer internship developing...
Fish in the Bay – June 2022, Record Anchovies and Gobies!
The fishes are now solidly in their summertime regime: Anchovies, Gobies, baby Sharks, and Bat Rays. Cool water fishes have...
Fish in the Bay – Alert! The 2022 Anchovy Spawn has Begun!
The Anchovy population just exploded in Lower South SF Bay. The monthly totals in April and May were 29 and...
Fish in the Bay – May 2022, Part 2: Leopard Shark Baby Boom.
These are additional notes from the May trawls. As always, there are so many critters to discuss and so little...
Fish in the Bay – May 2022: Big Baby Fish Month!
As reported last month, the early April trawls captured “Traditional Baby Fish Month.” But with only 721 babies, it was...
Fish in the Bay – April 2022, Part 2: Supplemental Report – The Bestiary.
Random observations from April trawls in Lower South San Francisco Bay. These were a series of Facebook posts that didn’t...
Fish in the Bay – April 2022, Part 1: Traditional Baby Fish Month?
Long-time readers will know that April is “Baby Fish Month” in Lower South SF Bay. Larvae of gobies and a...
Fish in the Bay – March 2022: A Crazy & mixed up month!
March was an unusual month that we still have not completely figured out. We are in the start of a...
Fish in the Bay – February/March 2022 Supplemental Report: Gobies, Shrimp, etc.
SF Bay fishes are very active in winter through spring. Charismatic pelagic fishes like Longfin Smelt, Anchovies, Herring, Topsmelt, and...
Fish in the Bay – February 2022: Another Record Catch.
February was another great month if you like small pelagic bait fishes. … And, who doesn’t? The February Longfin Smelt...
Fish in the Bay – January 2022: Anchovies and Longfins, yes! But, no Crangon brooding.
Good News! Our streak of phenomenal finfish production continues. This time last year, we were marveling over the uncharacteristic boost...
Fish in the Bay – January 2022: Mud Shrimp Alert – Upogebia Explosion on New Year’s Day!
Happy New Year! The new word for 2022 is “Upogebia,” aka Mud Shrimp. We caught our first Upogebia in Pond...
Fish in the Bay – December 2021: End of the first Dry La Nina Year.
2021 was a very good year in Lower South SF Bay (LSB) – for most fishes. Many records were broken,...
Fish in the Bay – December 2021: Longfin Alert! Longfin Smelt have commenced Spawning in Lower South San Francisco Bay!
The first spawning-ready Longfin Smelt of the 2021/22 spawning season have been detected. This typically happens in December, but only...
Fish in the Bay – November 2021: Winter Fish Transition.
Happy New Year 2022. I am thinking about 2021 in review, but at the same time, I am still catching...
Fish in the Bay – October 2021: Longfins Returned. Non-native Silversides & Shimofuris were still out of control.
Trawl map. The results from October trawls were a mix of good and bad news on several levels. Bay-side...
Fish in the Bay – September 2021: Operation Guadalupe, Part 3.
Operation Guadalupe trawl stations. Operation Guadalupe. Continued. For this third and last installment, we surveyed the upstream tidal end of...