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Watercolor painting of a male California sheephead on a boulder reef under kelp, black head and tail with a broad red middle.
Species · Wrasse

California sheephead fishing and limits

Semicossyphus pulcher

A kelp-forest wrasse with goat teeth and a forehead like a bumper, and every single one of them started out female.

TYPE
California sheephead (a wrasse)
SCIENTIFIC NAME
Semicossyphus pulcher
TYPICAL SIZE
3–12 lb
LIVES IN
Kelp forest and rocky reef
EATS
Urchins, crabs, shellfish

California sheephead regulations

MINIMUM SIZE
12 in total length
DAILY BAG
2
OPEN SEASON
Boats, Mar 1 to Dec 31

The boat season is the restricted one. Divers and shore anglers fish them year round.

14 CCR 28.26, as read on October 9, 2026. Limits, seasons and marine protected area boundaries change, so the CDFW ocean sport fishing regulations are the authority, not this page. Check them before you keep anything.

Meet the sheephead

Unmistakable once you have seen one: a black head and tail with a broad red middle, a white chin, a blunt forehead and a set of protruding teeth that look borrowed from a goat. They use those teeth exactly as they look, crunching straight through urchin shells and crab.

Where California sheephead hang out

In and around the kelp and on rocky reef, from the shallows down past 150 feet. They are territorial and they stay put, which is why a reef that gives up a big male one year often will not the next if someone took him. They sleep in rock crevices at night.

How they change sex

Sheephead all mature as females, and only some of them ever change. The largest fish in a local group becomes male, changing colour and growing the forehead over a few months. That makes the big red-and-black ones the ex-females, and it means heavy fishing of the biggest fish takes the males out of a reef faster than you would expect.

How to catch California sheephead

Shrimp, squid or a whole crab fished right on the rock. They are not shy but they are good at stripping a hook, so a smaller, stronger hook beats a big one. Size and bag limits are set by CDFW and have changed in recent years, so check before you keep.

Where to catch California sheephead

The grounds that hold California sheephead within reach of each home port, south to north. Follow a port through for its season, the rest of the water it reaches, and the rules that apply there.

Seasons, depth limits, size and bag limits and marine protected area boundaries are set by CDFW and change from year to year. Check the current rules for the ground you are running to before you keep anything.

🐟 FUN FACT

Sheephead are one of the few things that reliably eat purple urchins, which is why reefs that lose their big sheephead often end up as urchin barrens with the kelp grazed off.

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From the logbook

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How to catch sheephead in Southern California: reef, bait and the fall bite

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California sheephead: how the reef's red-and-black wrasse lives and changes sex

Every sheephead starts life as a female, and the biggest become the red-and-black males that hold a stretch of reef. What that means for where you fish and what you keep.

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