Grunion Run

I grew up in Northern California, but went to college in Southern California.  I had not heard about grunion until I was in college and never really knew if it was a tall tale like snipe or if they were real.  Well, now I know they're real.  While we were at my sister's, the grunion were scheduled to 'run'.  For four consecutive nights hundreds or more of these fish leave the water and come ashore to spawn.  The females bury their tails in the sand and males come around her to fertilize the eggs she lays in the sand.  They come after high tides and during full or new moons.  I still would've thought Beth and Daniel were tricking me and getting me to get all geared up and prepared to catch grunion just to get me there and have the joke on me, if they didn't go through all the trouble to bundle up their four kids in layers and load them into the car at 10pm (run on sentence).  It was a long day, since we'd been at Sea World all day, but we couldn't pass up our first grunion run.  The kids were excited, too, except Kerrigan wasn't as much when it came to it.  She was tired. My pictures are unfortunately not very good, since it was dark and I only had Doug's phone, but here's an idea of our grunion hunt....

 This was a bit what it was like once the grunion came out.  We had to be really quiet while we waited as  not to scare them.  There are scouts that come first and the rest will not come if there is danger suspected.  Once they came, the kids were crazy and running from spot to spot as the grunion changed their locations to get away from the kids!

 Another family, friends of Beth's and Daniel's, joined us, so there were 11 kids and 6 adults running around in the dark with little flashlights and wiggly fish.

 I don't think Kerrigan ever tried to catch or touch one.  She just kept wanting to be held by mommy.

 This is pretty representative of her mood

 Hudson was excited to catch his first one

Sutton was a maniac.  She caught and caught and caught.  She loved it.

So, we didn't get the numbers that have appeared before, but it was still pretty amazing to see.  I did catch my one :).  They are extremely strong and wiggle right out of your hands.  We let them all go in the end.