Barred Surfperch
Barred Surfperch (Amphistichus argenteus) is a saltwater species. The first thing to check: eight to ten olive-brown vertical bars down a bright silver flank, with bronze-gold spots scattered between them. The look-alike to rule out is Redtail Surfperch: redtail have reddish fins and a red-tinged tail, fainter bars, and are a more northern fish.
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| Scientific name | Amphistichus argenteus |
|---|---|
| Also called | barred perch, surfperch |
| Water | Saltwater |
| Group | Surfperch |
| Temperature | Common between about 55 and 65 °F. |
How to identify a Barred Surfperch
- Eight to ten olive-brown vertical bars down a bright silver flank, with bronze-gold spots scattered between them.
- A deep, strongly compressed body with a small mouth and no visible teeth.
- Bears live young rather than spawning — a hooked female in spring is often visibly full.
If you would rather not work through a key on a wet deck, photograph the fish and let the app name it — you get the common and the scientific name back, and the record is filed before you release.
Fish it is mistaken for
| Species | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Redtail Surfperch | Redtail have reddish fins and a red-tinged tail, fainter bars, and are a more northern fish. |
| Calico Surfperch | Calico surfperch are mottled and blotched rather than cleanly barred, and hold closer to rocks than open sand. |
Side-by-side comparisons
Read the full entry for Redtail Surfperch.
Where it lives
The California surf zone from about Bodega Bay south into Baja. Works the trough behind the first bar and the rip channels cut through it, feeding on sand crabs.
Temperature
Common between about 55 and 65 °F.
The conditions that matter
Surfperch fishing is reading the beach: fish hold in the trough and the rip channels, and a moving tide over a well-formed trough is what concentrates them. Swell height shapes the trough itself, so the same beach fishes completely differently after a big swell rearranges the sand — which is exactly the kind of thing a logbook holding swell and tide per catch makes visible.
Global Fishing League records 18 weather and water readings against every catch automatically — tide stage, barometric pressure, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, swell, current, moon phase and more, taken at your GPS position at the moment you log the fish. Over a season that turns a hunch about barred surfperch into a pattern you can read.
See every reading recorded with a catch, or the guides to what each reading means.
Size limits, bag limits and seasons
Size limits, bag limits, slot limits and seasons are set by your state wildlife agency — and for many offshore and migratory species by federal regulators — and on many waters they differ from the statewide rule. They also change between seasons. Check the current regulations for the exact water you are fishing before you keep a fish — we do not republish limits here, because a number that is a season out of date is worse than no number.
What the app does do is make your side of it accurate: every catch carries a length measured from the photograph, a GPS position and a timestamp, exportable if you ever need to show your work for a tournament or a record claim. It is also what a Global Fishing League entry is built from — a record that verifies itself, without publishing where you caught the fish.