One of the West Coast’s most spectacular natural phenomena is returning to California beaches. Starting Wednesday night, millions of small, silvery grunions are expected to ride the waves directly onto the sand for their spawning runs.

It’s open season, meaning Californians can now legally snag the slippery fish — but they’re capped at 30 grunion per person.

“These fish are famous for their remarkable spawning behavior, which evokes an ‘I don’t believe it!’ response from people when they see it or hear about it for the first time,” says the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as Huell Howser highlighted back in 1997.

Grunions do not migrate and typically reside in nearshore waters. The marine creatures leave the water at night during summer and spring months “to spawn on beaches.” 

“For four consecutive nights, beginning on the nights of the full and new moons, spawning occurs after high tides and continues for several hours,” CDFW says. 

While the spawning process “may only take 30 seconds, some fish remain stranded on the beach for several minutes” before a wave carries them back to the ocean.

The CDFW has mapped out the exact two-hour windows where spawning is most likely to occur. For this week’s peak run, the forecast is as follows:

Not every beach is a grunion hotspot, but the best runs usually happen on quiet, dark, sandy stretches with little foot traffic, gentle slopes and plenty of wide-open shoreline according to Surf Fishing in SoCal.

Despite local concentrations, “grunion are not abundant” and face ongoing threats from “loss of spawning habitat caused by beach erosion, harbor construction, and pollution.”

The CDFW advises people to catch these fishes using bare hands, without any tools or gears. During the open season, fisherfolk require a license to capture grunions. 

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