Overview of Bay Fishing

People have been fishing the Bay for a very long time.  The Ohlone and other coastal tribes integrated its resources into their culture and livelihood, reinforcing connections with shellmounds dotted around the Bay.  As Europeans settled the area, commercial fisheries developed for clam, oyster, the prized chinook salmon coming from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system, herring and sturgeon.  Striped bass were introduced from New Jersey in 1879 and generated another fishery.  Chinese immigrants established fishing villages around the bay for a thriving shrimp industry.  When egg prices were high, fishers even tried to lay claim to collecting murre eggs on the Farallons, culminating in the infamous 1863 Egg War (Rude, 2015; Kamiya, 2013).  In later years, a whaling station opened in Richmond, processing humpbacks, finbacks and sperm whales into oil and dog food.

A number of factors doomed commercial harvests in the Bay.  Prospectors in the gold rush era blasted the riverbeds in the Sierra foothills shaking loose silt that filtered its way down the river and filled the Bay to its current shallow depths. Sewage and land reclamation ended the shell fisheries, damming of rivers and water diversion the salmon and bass, and overfishing the sturgeon.   Salmon fishing was restricted in 1957 to only outside the Golden Gate and striped bass only to recreational fishing (Smith et al. 1975).  Whaling was outlawed in 1971 and the Richmond station was the last in the country to close (see Steh and Woody interview). The health department closed the shrimping camps in 1939 and burned the buildings (Carlsson n.d.).

Over in the East Bay, bay fill development changed the shoreline, where shores north to south  were designated for noxious industries: a dynamite factory, laundry business, garbage incinerator and stockyards.  Berkeley located its municipal dump in the north part of its waterfront (Schwartz, 2022). In the 1920’s, a ferry company obtained permission to build a pier 3.5 miles out to from shore that accommodated two lanes of automobile traffic to access an auto ferry that would take cars across to San Francisco and back.  This became one of the last stops along the Lincoln Highway, the first highway to cross the United States (Kinst 2016, 2019). Meanwhile, the Berkeley marina was changing shape as well.  Grants from the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s funded construction of the Berkeley Yacht Harbor, now the Berkeley Marina, and the nearby Aquatic Park, west of the West Berkeley Shellmound. It later expanded with a loan from the State of California in 1965. 

The opening of the Bay Bridge in 1936 spelled the end of auto ferry service and the city was given the pier for free.  It quickly became a mecca for anglers, though they had to pay 5 cents to go on it (Jones 2018).  When maintenance fell behind and the city of Berkeley planned to close the pier in 1955, protests arose.  Eventually, the California Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) partnered with the city to fund renovation, one of the first in a series of WCB public pier renovations for recreational purposes and the goal of perpetuating a sports fishery (Wildlife Conservation Board, n.d.).  The new configuration stretched to 3000 feet, shorter than the original auto ferry pier, but was the second longest pier in California, only after the San Mateo pier (4135 feet) which was part of the old San Mateo Bridge (Jones 2018). It therefore allowed access to deeper water and bigger game. It was heavily used by all walks of society and hosted fishing derbies (Jones, 2018). The WCB fund also refurbished the Berkeley pier in the 80's to go along with an urban fishing program nationwide  by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.  It became home of the Mud Marlin Derby and was considered probably #1 in piers north of Point Conception for catching big halibut (https://www.pierfishing.com/california-halibut/).  

Although the Eastshore Highway and now I-80 slices down the west side of Berkeley, literally cutting it off from its waterfront, the disconnect did not stop the area from becoming a refuge, retreat and recreational space for children and families growing up, hanging out and learning to fish around the marina and the pier.  Recreational fishing supplanted commercial fishing in the Bay, with the Berkeley pier probably one of its most popular destination.  The interstate represents a hard line between the city and the waterfront, but residents managed to bridge the gap, literally.  Kids would go down the marina on bikes, busses or walking, using the overpass along University Avenue.  The neighborhoods closest to the waterfront also happened to be lower income and largely African American and Asian, although kids from further away and the hills also easily found their way to the shoreline.  The stories in this collection recount growing up fishing for fun and fishing for food, and, for some, fishing at the Berkeley pier launched a career in maritime.  

People often use the term “Berkeley Marina” to refer to the whole waterfront, which today is a hub for recreational water activities. Descriptions of the area today, however, emphasize paddleboarding, kayaking, dog walking and sailing as typical activities, with public fishing almost a memory.  The pier closure in 2015 undoubtedly had something to do with angling’s uncertain value in current Berkelyans’ minds.  As one shoreline angler remembers, one day the city firetrucks were out on the pier for drills close to the 4th of July, and the next day it was closed.  Someone had noticed concrete spalling under the pier and inspectors deemed it unsafe.  No more fishing derbies.

Yet, people still come to fish along the shoreline, during lunch break, after work, weekends and anytime if they have a flexible schedule.  As Berkeley’s pattern of redlining exacerbated segregation, many African Americans moved away for other housing options.  Neighborhoods in the “front”, the area of West Berkeley from north to south, went from 30%-86% Black to 17%-22% from 1970 to 2000 (Owens, 2021a, 2021b). While Berkeley’s current population is over 50% white, a sample of shoreline anglers showed that about 25% were African American, 25% Hispanic and only about 25% white, a demographic profile distinct from Berkeley, with many traveling from Oakland, Richmond and Sacramento to fish.  Japanese families experienced major disruption and displacement during World War II (see Yamamoto, Kiyoshi and Sakaji interviews), yet many returned to the area after the war.

No matter your background, childhood memories forge themselves in our minds and shape our lives.  Some who have moved away return to Berkeley to fish at the waterfront or enjoy its casual ambiance.  The spot still offers a straight-shot view of the Golden Gate Bridge and West coast sunsets.  The marina baitshop remains open, run by new owners, who help keep Berkeley fishing alive and set kids up with their first bait and tackle. Anglers still catch halibut, bass, sharks, rays and sturgeon from the shoreline.   The marina hosts a sizeable sport fishing fleet that cranks into high gear during halibut season, attracting new generations of anglers to the most popular port of embarkation in California for halibut Barrientos et al. 2017).

So, are people still fishing in Berkeley?  Oh yes.  Would more come if the pier reopened?  Heck yeah.  What would they like to see for the future of the area? Check out the stories!  They contain both memories and continuing experiences today of people - across generations - interacting with the waterfront and Berkeley’s unique connection to the Bay, ocean and aquatic history.

References:

Barrientos, M., Lavín, F. V., Barr, R., Bruner, A., & Bonine, K. (2017). Economic benefits of the recreational California halibut fishery: A travel cost analysis. Wildlife, CDoFa (ed.).

Carlsson, Chris, n.d. Chinese shrimping village: Historical Essay. FoundSF. https://www.foundsf.org/Chinese_shrimping_village. Accessed 8/12/2025.

Egg War, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_War. Accessed 8/12/2025.

Jones, Ken, 2018. Berkeley Pier.  https://www.pierfishing.com/berkeley-pier/  Last modified December 13, 2018. Accessed 9/1/2022.

Kamiya, Gary, May 24, 2013. “In the Farallones, egg wars once broke out,” SFGate, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/in-the-farallones-egg-wars-once-broke-out-4547821.php   Accessed 8/12/2025.

Kinst, Gary (ed), 2016. The Traveler: Lincoln Highway Association – California Chapter, 17:1, Winter, January 2016.

Kinst, Gary (ed), 2019. The Traveler: Lincoln Highway Association – California Chapter, 20:4, Fall, October 2019.

Owens, Darrell, 2021a. “The History of Gentrification in Berkeley: Part I,”

https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-history-of-gentrification-in and https://darrellowensrcd.github.io/infoTransit/1970_vs_2020.html, October 25, 2021. Accessed 2/9/2024.

Owens, Darrell, 2021b.  The History of Gentrification in Berkeley: Part II: The history of displacement and housing politics in Berkeley with Census data, https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-history-of-gentrification-in-111, October 25, 2021. Accessed 2/9/2024. 

Rude, Emily, 2015. “The Worst That Can Happen When Egg Prices Get Too High,” Time, December 18, 2015. https://time.com/4149595/farallon-egg-wars/

 Accessed 8/12/2025.

Schwartz, Susan, 2022. Handout for Berkeley Historical Society Walk along the Waterfront, Oct. 29, 2022. 

Smith, S. E., & Kato, S. (1975). The Fisheries of San Francisco Bay, Past, Present and Future. California Academy of Sciences.

Wildlife Conservation Board, n.d. Internal public documents.  Available upon request from C. Antinori.