American River fishing guide

Public access & launches

Extensive public bank access along the American River, computed from public land ownership and hydrography.

Explore public access points and the exact bank on the interactive map in the app.

Regulations

• Black BassColorado River District: All waters (Bag and size limits conform with Arizona regulations.)

  Season

  All year.

  Bag

  6

  Size

  13-inch minimum.

• Catfish and BullheadsAll waters of the Southern District not listed below

  Bag

  10

• Catfish and BullheadsAll Waters of the Colorado River District Also see subsection (c) below

  Bag

  10

As of 2026-08-28.Guidance, not legal advice — always confirm current rules with the state.

More California fishing

California field notes

San Francisco, CA

The Greenbelt Nobody Planned: Hiking the Bay Area's Open Space

Ringing seven million people is one of the largest protected greenbelts around any American city: well over a million acres of parkland, watershed, and open space, assembled piecemeal over a century by agencies that mostly weren't coordinating. You can walk into redwoods, chaparral, and coastal prairie from a transit stop.

Los Angeles, CA

A Mountain Range Inside the City: Hiking Greater Los Angeles

Los Angeles has a mountain range running through the middle of it and a taller one along its northern edge rising past 10,000 feet. The city that everyone pictures as freeway and sprawl is bounded and bisected by wilderness, and most of it is a twenty-minute drive from somewhere you already are.

San Diego, CA

Urban Fishing in San Diego: Spotted Bay Bass in Mission Bay, Halibut from the Piers, and Trophy Largemouth 15 Minutes from Downtown

San Diego has ocean piers where you can catch halibut and yellowtail without a licence, 27 miles of Mission Bay shoreline holding spotted bay bass and corvina, surf beaches with corbina and perch, and urban reservoirs that have produced some of the biggest largemouth bass ever recorded. No boat needed.

Los Angeles, CA

Urban Fishing in Los Angeles: Carp in the LA River, Trout in City Parks, and Pier Fishing Without Leaving the 405

Los Angeles has a concrete river full of carp and bass, city park lakes stocked with trout in winter and catfish in summer, and ocean piers where you can catch halibut and mackerel with the Pacific sunset behind you. No boat. No car required for some of the best spots.

San Francisco, CA

Birding San Francisco Bay: Don Edwards, the Salt Ponds, and the Shoreline

San Francisco Bay lost roughly ninety percent of its tidal marsh and then built one of the first urban national wildlife refuges in the country on what was left. The birding is exceptional, the sites are free, and the salt ponds are in the middle of the largest tidal wetland restoration on the west coast.

Yosemite Valley, CA

Clouds Rest Is Higher Than Half Dome, Needs No Permit, and Has the Better View

It stands a thousand feet above Half Dome, looks down on it, requires no lottery, and finishes on a granite fin narrow enough that the last few hundred yards are the most exposed ground most hikers will ever walk. Almost nobody outside Yosemite has heard of it.

American River fishing — FAQ