Surveys of smelt length

This metadata record documents target species surveys of night smelt, Spirinchus starski, for the California North Coast MPA baseline characterization of sandy beaches conducted between March 2014 and August 2015. Sandy beach surf zones are important foraging and spawning grounds for smelt species. Night smelt are commercially fished in the California north coast region. They are also traditionally fished and are a culturally important species for north coast tribes. These organisms are easy to sample, identify, and enumerate and are thus excellent target species for monitoring. From the surveys we determined the length and sex of sampled fish.