SoCal Grunion Run

You have not truly experienced Southern California until you have gone Grunion hunting (and no, this is not like snipe hunting).

Time for a short Grunion lesson.

Grunion are small silvery fish that are only about 5 or 6 inches long. They are usually found in Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. The best beaches in Cali are Del Mar, La Jolla, Mission Beach and Coronado Strand. (We opted for Coronado) Between March and September every year the Grunion come up all the way out of the water onto the beach to spawn. They only come up on certain days, before the new and full moons, like clockwork. Always after the highest tide, which of course is about 1 am. The females come out of the water first and lay their eggs in the sand and than the males come up after and fertilize the eggs. At times there can be thousands of Grunion on the beach at a time.

To find out more about Grunions: The Amazing Grunion

What is so entertaining about hunting for Grunion, you ask? It is the way you catch them. Basically you chase after them and pick them up! It is quite entertaining to watch.

Unfortunately when we went we only saw a few Grunion, although there was a sand artist (he was entertaining). I was not able to hold one but my friends were able to. We looked like crazy people out on the beach at 1 am.

Ok we looked crazy because we started running around and taking silly pictures...

Jourdan woke up and wanted to know what was going on, bedhead and all. (And no, the wind is not blowing his hair!) We really wanted Jourdan to see a Grunion but we did not see anymore after he woke up.

So all in all we had a successful Grunion run! We will be out there next month too!