Striped Bass Slot Limit Fish and Game Commission Meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 8

September 10, 2025 | NCGASA Staff

Striped Bass Slot Limit Fish and Game Commission Meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 8

Note: The Fish and Game Commission voted 3-NOs & 2-Yes on the proposed slot limit regulation change that was proposed. You can watch what happened at the Oct. 8 meeting at https://cal-span.org/ and scroll to the 3pm-4pm hour mark.

> Attend this meeting on the Striped Bass Fishery and potential SLOT LIMIT regulations. Agenda Item #14 on Oct. 8 is Striped Bass.

*** We are thinking it will come up for discussion at 11am. Meeting starts at 9am.

> If you cannot attend this meeting, you can email in your comments to fgc@fgc.ca.gov

Meeting Info

WHERE: East End Complex Auditorium
1500 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95814

> AGENDA: Download, Click Here

> MEETING DOCUMENTS, Please Read, Click Here

> For links on How to Join or to phone in and comment, visit: https://fgc.ca.gov/Meetings/2025

> Watch what happened at the Aug. 14th meeting: https://cal-span.org/meeting/cfg_20250814/

> Fish and Game Commissioners who weigh in on these important decisions:

https://fgc.ca.gov/About/Members

Background from Aug. 14 meeting

Summary of Previous/Future Actions Action Date
• Granted petition 2020-005 AM 1 December 2020
• Granted petition 2022-12 December 2022
• Wildlife Resources Committee (WRC) vetting Various 2023-2024; WRC
• Notice hearing June 11-12, 2025
• Today’s discussion hearing August 13-14, 2025
• Adoption hearing October 8-9, 2025

FGC Summary

At its June 2025 meeting, the Commission authorized publication of its intent to amend regulations related to recreational striped bass harvest size limits. The notice appeared in the California Regulatory Notice Record on August 1, 2025. The proposal – initiated by two different public petitions for regulation change granted for consideration by the Commission in 2020 and 2022 – is to complement the existing 18-inch minimum size limit with a 30-inch maximum size limit, effectively creating a slot limit of 18 to 30 inches for harvesting striped bass in anadromous waters and marine waters north of Point Conception. Further background on the proposal noticed by the Commission can be found in Exhibit 1 and the initial statement of reasons (Exhibit 2). As part of the ongoing discussions about striped bass and a potential slot limit during WRC meetings in 2023 and 2024, the Department provided the Commission an evaluation of the proposal; the evaluation included a set of appendices with a literature review on striped bass diet, foraging behavior and predation, among other data and information. The Department is updating the evaluation with additional information, though it is not expected to change the original conclusions.

Video from Nor-Cal Guides President James Stone

James discusses what’s on the table for the Striped Bass meeting on the Nor-Cal Guides YouTube Channel: Click Here.

Nor-Cal Guides & Sportsmen’s Association files petition on Striped Bass Slot Limit Regulation Change

> Read the letter to the FGC from NCGASA, CLICK HERE

The Nor-Cal Guides and Sportsmen’s Association has been advocating for Striped Bass for over a decade. We (NCGASA) were instrumental in trying to rebuild after the 1997 policy was completely gutted from the CA Fish & Game Commission in 2018. All anadromous species in the Delta are in parallel decline, and all species are on the lowest levels historically that they’ve ever been, including Striped Bass.

In 2019, NCGASA helped create the Delta Fisheries Management Policy, which brought together a wide variety of stakeholders and Delta interest. And NCGASA was leading the coalition on behalf of the striped bass.

NCGASA has since partnered with multiple organizations who are in favor of protecting the striped bass on the upper end limit and making sure that our fisheries stay thriving and healthy. The coalition is over 68,000 people strong who are all for protecting the striped bass. NCGASA filed a petition for the third time in 2021, which led to the CA Fish & Game Commission asking the department to analyze the effects of creating a slot limit on striped bass.

In 2024, those proposals and the department shared their recommendations. They decided not to increase the lower side of the 18-inch slot, but they are in favor of a 30-inch to protect the larger breeder females as well as creating a catch and release trophy fishery.

In June of 2025, the petition moved out of the Wildlife Resources Committee and into the CA Fish & Game Commission. The recommendation is to keep the season at 365 days a year with a bag limit of two fish per day as it currently stands.

We are now at the final stages and the final meeting prior to voting. The voting will take place in the afternoon in Sacramento at the natural resources building on October 8, 2025. We are calling on all anglers who care about Striped Bass to show up in the afternoon after lunch for the Striped Bass decision. If you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can attend remotely via Zoom.

From now until October 8, we encourage you to email the Commission. If your part of a group, please send a letter on your groups letterhead to Fgc@fgc.ca.gov. Subject: Agenda 14 Striped Bass

SUNDAY, OCT. 5: Tune in to the Nor-Cal Guides Facebook Page at 9am for an overview. Find this video on our YouTube Channel.

Studies, Papers and Reports on Striped Bass. Visit our Resources page for more papers

2023 | Striped bass have been blamed for the declines in salmon and steelhead populations by Tom Cannon click here
2023 | Causes of the Long-Term Decline in Striped Bass and Potential Recovery by Tom Cannon, click here
2023 | California Fish and Game Commission Adopts New Striped Bass Policy for Delta by Miles B. H. Krieger, Steve Anderson/Ardent Communications. Click Here
The Striped Bass Policy is available online at: https://fgc.ca.gov/About/Policies/Fisheries#StripedBass
2022 | The Role of Contaminants, within the Context of Multiple Stressors, in the Collapse of the Striped Bass Population in the San Francisco Estuary and its Watershed, Click Here
2021 | Contaminant Concentrations in Sport Fish from San Francisco Bay 2019: Click Here to read the Technical Report. This Report presents results from a 2019 survey of contaminants in San Francisco Bay sport fish. This monitoring effort represents the eighth round of sport fish contaminant monitoring in the Bay, with the last seven conducted by the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay (RMP). The RMP began sport fish monitoring in 1997, following a pilot study conducted by the Bay Protection and Toxic Cleanup Program in 1994
2011 | Habitat use of Striped Bass in the S.F. estuary and its effect on total mercury and heavy metal body burden upon capture. Click Here The purpose of this study was to clarify habitat use, movements of Striped Bass in the SFE, and potential dangers to Striped Bass and consumers from contaminants by utilizing two sets of analyses, presented in separate chapters
2008 | Maternal transfer of xenobiotics and effects on larval striped bass in the San Francisco Estuary. Click Here Results from 8 years of field and lab-oratory investigations indicate that sublethal contaminant exposure is occurring in the early life stages of striped bass in the San Francisco Estuary, a population in continual decline since its initial collapse during the 1970s.

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