Fishery characteristics of Richardson Bay include a Pacific herring fishery and oyster beds. The herring fishing fleet serving all of San Francisco Bay is based in Richardson Bay at the Sausalito harbor. This herring fishing is overseen by the California Department of Fish and Game; the herring population is in a downward trend, although not from excessive fishing pressure with the net techniques in use, but rather from ocean environmental factors. Herring spend most of their lives in the open ocean and come to Richardson Bay and other estuaries for winter spawning in the shallow protected waters. In Richardson Bay their eggs attach to assorted surfaces such as eelgrass, piers or rip rap. After the eggs hatch, the herring larvae consume plankton; before hatching the eggs are subject to predation by gulls at low tide and sturgeon and other assorted estuarine fauna at higher tides.
