Pacific sand lance
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-11
The North Pacific counterpart of the sandeel: a slender burrowing shoaling fish that underpins the salmon, seabird and marine mammal food webs of that ocean.
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.
Pacific sand lance occupy the same ecological position on the North Pacific coast that lesser sandeels occupy in the North Sea, and they look and behave much the same: slender, silver, shoaling in the water column by day and burrowing into clean sand by night.
Their importance is disproportionate to their size. Juvenile and adult Pacific salmon feed heavily on them in coastal waters, as do lingcod, rockfish, seabirds, seals and whales. In parts of the north-eastern Pacific, sand lance are the single most important forage fish in nearshore waters, and the condition of salmon in a given year is measurably tied to their abundance.
The habitat requirement is specific and vulnerable. Sand lance need clean, well-sorted sand of a particular grade to burrow into, which is a narrow band of nearshore seabed that coastal development, dredging and sediment change readily degrade.
The record exists so that chinook and coho salmon diets can name their principal coastal prey.
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
- Ammodytes personatus
- Family
- Ammodytidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Not assessed
- Regions
- North America, East Asia, Arctic & Subarctic
- Very slender, elongate body with a pointed snout and a projecting lower jaw.
- Long, low, uniform dorsal fin without spines, running most of the length of the back.
- Bright silver flanks with a greenish or bluish back and oblique skin folds along the sides.
- No pelvic fins, which distinguishes sand lances from most other slender inshore fishes.
Size
- Typical
- 10–18 cm
- Large
- up to about 25 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Matures at one to two years and lives to around five to eight. Recruitment is variable and tied to the availability of suitable sandy substrate as much as to spawning success.
Spawns in winter in shallow water, laying adhesive demersal eggs in and on clean intertidal and subtidal sand. The dependence on a narrow band of specific sediment makes spawning habitat the population's principal constraint.
Feeding and senses
Feeds during daylight in the water column on copepods, other planktonic crustaceans and fish larvae, and buries in sand at night and through much of the non-feeding season.
A visual daylight planktivore. Emergence from and return to the sand track light levels closely, which makes the species available to predators on a daily schedule as well as a seasonal one.
Through the year
Feeds actively in the water column during the productive spring and summer months and spends extended periods buried in autumn and winter. Predator movements inshore in the north-eastern Pacific are closely tied to that availability.
Distribution
The North Pacific, from California north along the American coast to Alaska and across to Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, in nearshore waters over clean sandy seabeds.
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 quarry. It matters to anglers as the food that concentrates salmon, lingcod and rockfish inshore, and as the model for a large number of slim baitfish lure patterns.
Handling and returning
Rarely handled by anglers. Where sand lance are gathered for bait, disturbance of the narrow band of clean sandy seabed the species depends on for burrowing and spawning is a genuine conservation concern, and local guidance on where and how to gather is worth following.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Chinook salmonSand lance are a principal prey of chinook in coastal waters, and chinook condition in the north-eastern Pacific tracks sand lance abundance closely.- Coho salmonSand lance are heavily taken by coho in coastal waters, particularly during the marine growth phase before return.
What these connections rest on (2)
Scientific evidence — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Chinook salmon
Recorded diet evidence identifies Ammodytes personatus 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 Ammodytes personatus.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 Ammodytes personatus occurs.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Coho salmon
Recorded diet evidence identifies Ammodytes personatus 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 Ammodytes personatus.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 Ammodytes personatus 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
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