Northern anchovy
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-11
A shoaling anchovy of the eastern Pacific upwelling coast, and one of the two forage species that alternate in dominating that ecosystem.
A supporting record, not a fishing profile
This page is here so FishingHQ can describe a biological relationship accurately — usually because a fish covered elsewhere on the site feeds on this. It covers what it is, where it lives and the evidence behind that relationship, and deliberately nothing about methods, bait or tackle. Its presence here is not a statement that anybody fishes for it.
The northern anchovy is the Pacific counterpart of the European anchovy, and it shares the same profile: enormous mouth, translucent slender body, dense shoals in productive coastal water.
What makes the eastern Pacific case distinctive is the alternation. Anchovy and sardine abundance in the California Current system swing between decades-long regimes in which one or the other dominates, apparently driven by ocean temperature and productivity cycles rather than by fishing alone. That alternation propagates through the whole system, and it is one of the best-documented examples anywhere of a food web reorganising itself around a change in the forage base.
For predators the anchovy is a high-value item: oily, abundant when abundant, and shoaling at a size a great many species can use. Salmon, halibut, rockfish, seabirds and marine mammals all feed on them heavily.
The record supports diet edges for Pacific salmon and other eastern Pacific predators in the catalogue.
Identification
FishingHQ holds no photograph of this species whose identity and licensing it can vouch for, so it is not showing one. Misidentified fish photographs teach identification wrongly, and a picture with an unchecked caption would be worse than none. The identification points below are what to look at instead.
- Scientific name
- Engraulis mordax
- Family
- Engraulidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- North America
- Slender silver-blue fish with a very large mouth extending well behind the eye.
- Pointed, overhanging snout giving the characteristic anchovy head profile.
- Bright silver flank stripe on a translucent body, with a metallic blue-green back.
- Smooth, rounded belly without the serrated keel found on sardines and shads.
Size
- Typical
- 10–18 cm
- Large
- up to about 25 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Matures within one to two years and lives to about seven, though most of the population is much younger. Rapid maturation makes the population highly responsive to ocean conditions.
Spawns in batches through an extended season, chiefly in late winter and spring, releasing buoyant ellipsoidal eggs into coastal water. Spawning output is used directly as an index of stock size in assessments.
Feeding and senses
Feeds on zooplankton, principally copepods and euphausiids, by both particulate feeding and filter feeding, and on phytoplankton when it is dense enough to filter productively.
Vision for particulate feeding, with lateral-line-mediated schooling that produces the tight defensive formations characteristic of the species under attack.
Through the year
Moves inshore and to the surface seasonally and disperses offshore and deeper at other times, with the pattern driven by upwelling and temperature. Predator distribution in the California Current tracks the shoals closely.
Distribution
The eastern Pacific from British Columbia south to Baja California and the Gulf of California, in coastal and shelf waters of the California Current system.
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
Not a rod-and-line target but very widely used as live bait in Pacific coast fisheries, bought from bait receivers rather than caught by anglers. Its significance is as the forage species that concentrates the predators anglers pursue.
Handling and returning
Extremely delicate. Anchovies used as live bait require a well-circulated, smooth-sided tank and are moved with a soft net rather than by hand, because scale loss from handling kills them within minutes rather than hours.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
What these connections rest on (1)
Scientific evidence — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Chinook salmon
Recorded diet evidence identifies Engraulis mordax as a food item of this predator at species level. The edge is written at that granularity and no further.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Food items recorded for this predator, including Engraulis mordax.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species account describing the diet of this predator in the region where Engraulis mordax occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where you will find it
What these connections rest on (1)
Scientific evidence — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
The Pacific Northwest coast
Occurrence of the species in this system or along this coast: a statement about the animal's distribution, not a venue recommendation.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Distribution, salinity tolerance and habitat association recorded for the species, including its occurrence in this system.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: Assessment and range description for the species, including the waters in which it occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section, because this record connects to very little and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources for this page
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Species identity, binomial, family placement, size, distribution and recorded biology for this species.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The regional species account describing identity, distribution and the role of this species in the fisheries and food webs it belongs to.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.