Grunion Fishing
In the 1920s recreational fishing of grunion caused definite signs of depletion resulting in a regulation passed in 1927 that established a closed season of three months from April until June. Grunion stocks improved and in 1947 the closed season was shortened from April through to May. This closure is still in effect to protect grunion during their peak spawning period.
The periodic appearance of the grunion on Southern California beaches, and the act of catching them, is locally known as a "grunion run." A fishing license is required for persons 16 years and older to catch grunion and they may be taken by sport fishermen using their hands only. No appliances of any kind may be used to catch grunion, and no holes may be dug in the beach to entrap them. Grunion may be taken on specified dates between March and the end of August. There is no limit, but fishermen may take only what they can use, as under Californian law it is unlawful to waste fish. With these regulations, the resource seems to be maintaining itself at a fairly constant level.
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Famous quotes containing the word fishing:
“It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)