Order Pleuronectiformes —
Righteye Flounders — Family Pleuronectidae — Starry Flounder
Starry Flounder from the Joseph's Pier in Rodeo (now gone)
Righteye Flounders — Family Pleuronectidae — Starry Flounder
Starry Flounder from the Joseph's Pier in Rodeo (now gone)
Species: Platichthys stellatus (Pallas, 1787); from the Greek words platy (flat) and ichthys (fish) and the Latin word stellatus (starry).
Son Michael and a starry flounder from the Pacifica Pier
Alternate Names: Rough-jacket, great flounder, grindstone, emery flounder, emerywheel, leatherjacket, English sole, sand paper flounder, diamondback, long-jaw flounder, California flounder, swamp flounder and (too simple) flounder. A little harder is the Alaskan Haida name for starry flounder— st'áw t'ál tl'uugwáang.
A starry flounder from the Berkeley Pier
Identification: Starries have a flat, diamond-shape distinguished by alternating orange and black stripes on the dorsal and anal fins. In addition, by ten inches in length, they have developed rough, lumpy stellate (star-shaped) scales that give the fish its common name starry flounder. The eyed side is typically dark brown to nearly black (although Alaskan species sometimes have a greenish tinge). Occasionally a specimen is found with white on the eyed side or completely colored on the blind side. Interesting item #1: starries contain pigments known as chromatophores, which allows them to change color and pattern to match a dark or light substrate (bottom). In addition they will flutter their fins to cover the body with sand when it wants to hide. Interesting item #2: Starry Flounders can swim backward!. They can go in reverse using the rays in the dorsal fin to create a paddling motion. Interesting item #3: Considered a member of the right-eye flounder family but sixty percent have eyes on the left side. The question of left side right side raises a question. Off Japan nearly 100% of the starries are left eyed (sinistral); off Alaska the number drops to 67%; off the West Coast of the U.S. the number drops to 50-60%. Is it environmental or genetic? Scientists don’t know the answer.
A starry flounder from the Cayucos Pier
Size: To 36 inches and over 20 pounds but most caught from piers are less than 18 inches. The California record fish weighed 11 lb. 4 oz. and was caught at San Simeon in 1993. The IGFA World Record fish is listed at 10 lb. 9 oz. for a fish caught at Bolinas, Marin Co. in 2007.
A starry flounder from the Capitola Wharf
Range: The range of these fish is somewhat amazing extending into the far northern regions of the Arctic Ocean and east into Asia. Los Angeles Harbor, southern California to the Commander-Aleutian Islands, Alaska, west through the Bering Sea, southeast to the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, and the Sea of Japan (off the Korean Peninsula and Japan), north to the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean, northwest to the East Siberian Sea, Russia, northeast at least to Bathhurst Inlet, Nunavut and Count Melville Sound, Canada. They are uncommon south of Point Conception. Starries can also travel quite a way up streams. Some were observed in the San Luis Reservoir and O’Neill Forebay in California apparently having been transported there via the California Aqueduct after traversing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Mel and a starry flounder from the Paradise Park Pier
Habitat: Although most common in intertidal, shallow-water areas, they have been recorded at a depth of 1,968 feet in the ocean. They are an euryhaline species meaning they are capable of tolerating a wide range of salinities. However, they rarely venture into areas of high salinity but prefer water with lower salinity levels. As a result they are often found in brackish bays, estuaries, and river mouths while also commonly entering freshwater streams and rivers. Both young and adults will sometimes travel as much as 80 miles upstream. As a rule they prefer gravel, sand and muddy habitat. It is also reported that starry flounder sometimes hybridize with English sole producing the Hybrid Sole, Inopsetta ischyra. Young starries apparently subsist mainly on a diet of shrimp and worms. As they mature they develop more of an Epicurean craving for such items as crabs, clams, brittle stars, sand dollars and other fish including herring, sardines, small perch and sanddabs. I imagine anyone baiting up his or her hook with a brittle star or a sand dollar (and I'm not sure how you would do it) would get a really strange, only-in-California look from other anglers. Males live to a ripe old age of 24 years but are bachelors at a certain point since the females only live to 17 years of age
A starry flounder from the Paradise Park Pier
Piers: Once common in central and northern California but far less common today. Best bets: Cayucos Pier, San Simeon Pier, Capitola Wharf, Santa Cruz Wharf, Pillar Point Pier, Berkeley Pier, Point Pinole Pier, Martinez Pier, McNear Beach Pier, Paradise Beach Pier, Adorni Pier, and the “B” Street Pier in Crescent City.
Shoreline: Once a common shore catch by anglers in San Francisco and Humboldt Bay but today far less common.
Boats: Once a favored fish for boaters in the San Francisco Bay Area but numbers have dropped dramatically over the years.
A young Robert Gardner (Redfish).
Bait and Tackle: Once heavily fished in the San Francisco Bay Area although numbers have dropped. The most common rigging is a sliding live bait leader baited with pile worms, live grass shrimp or ghost shrimp. Many are also taken on high/low leaders baited with pile worms, grass shrimp, ghost shrimp, cut anchovy, squid, or even pieces of market shrimp. Medium-size tackle with number 4 or 2 hooks is adequate.
Some are also taken on artificial lures. In Coastal Fishes of the Pacific Northwest by Andy Lamb and Phil Edgell, it’s reported that “small spinners slowly retrieved near the sandy bottom also attract this good light-tackle battler. Fly fishermen seeking a novel experience can sometimes catch this inhabitant of shallow water when it rises to the surface at night, attracted either by pier lights or the small prey congregating there.” I've never heard of similar fishing in northern California bays but it may be possible.
Another book, one that was a favorite of mine when I was young, is Anglers Guide To The Salt Water Fishes by Edward C. Migdalski. In his discussion of starry flounder he writes, “during one expedition to Unimak Island in the Aleutians, Larry Sheerin and I experienced some wonderful sport with the starry flounder. We were fishing primarily for dolly varden trout as we cast small spoons into a fairly large and rapid river which emptied into the sea a couple of miles further down. We caught many good-sized dolly varden, which put up a splendid battle in such cold swift water, but the occasional large starry flounders that grabbed our lures out-scrapped the trout!”
As a general rule the best time to fish for starry flounder is spring into summer when they leave ocean waters and invade inland waters to spawn.
Two starry flounder from San Pablo Bay
Food Value: Generally good although some feel they have a somewhat soft texture and only a fair flavor. Commercially often distributed simply as sole. Processing is difficult due to their rough skin, and the need to be deep skinned to remove an unappealing, dark fat layer. This is another fish that may be unsafe to eat in areas with heavy pollution. Best fried or baked.
A hybrid sole, Inopsetta ischyraybrid, a cross between a starry flounder and an English sole. Caught at the Capitola Wharf
Comments: When I lived in the San Francisco’s East Bay in the ‘70s, starry flounder were one of main fish I would catch when fishing San Pablo Bay and the Carquinez Strait, especially from Pinole to Martinez. But then the numbers seemed to drop throughout the entire Bay Area; it was almost rare to catch a starry flounder. Recent reports however indicate high survival rates of young starry flounders and there is high hope for the numbers to continue to increase.
The drop in numbers in the ‘80s-90s and beyond was a stark contrast to the numbers once seen. In Marine Food and Game Fishes of California by John E. Fitch and Robert J. Lavenberg, the authors say, “starry flounder are the most common flatfish caught by sport fishermen in central and northern California, an estimated 14,000 per year being taken during the period 1958 to 1961. About half of these are caught by pier fishermen and most of the rest by shore and skiff fishermen.” However, in reviewing the fish catch data from central and northern California piers, 2000-2009, I could only find three piers where starry flounder were the predominant flatfish—the McNear Beach Pier, Paradise Beach Pier, and Point Pinole Pier, all in San Francisco or San Pablo Bay (although piers in the Carquinez Strait were not surveyed and probably would show starry flounder as the number one flatfish at those piers). The number one flatfish at most piers, especially oceanfront piers and those near the entrance to San Francisco Bay was now sanddabs although some piers showed good numbers of California halibut (especially the Berkeley Pier).
Could da’ books be wrong? Until recently (2002) most authoritarian guides listed the range of starry flounder as south only to Santa Barbara or the Santa Ynez River (near Santa Barbara). However, on July 4, 1962, I caught a fish off of Newport Pier that seemed to match, in every respect, the characteristics of starry flounder: its coloring was the same, it had rough scales, etc. Several source books conflicted on the southern range of this fish, but one old text did include a listing for a southern starry flounder that showed a more southern range. That identification satisfied my biology teacher at Newport Harbor H.S. as well as myself. The guidebooks still do not list starries as extending south to Newport Beach but I will continue to believe that I caught a starry flounder at the Newport Pier on Independence Day, 1962.