Salton Sea (Tilapia — a Fishery in Flux)
Imperial / Riverside counties · near Niland / Mecca · California Desert
Fishing · Wildlife Watching
At a glance
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Best season
- Cooler months (fish stress in summer heat)
- Best season
- Nov–Mar for wintering & migrating birds; avoid brutal summer heat
- Open year round
- Yes
Permits and booking
- Licence required
- Yes
- Licence detail
- CA license (16+) required. IMPORTANT: the Salton Sea's once-legendary fishery has largely collapsed as salinity rose — the famed orangemouth corvina and gulf croaker are essentially gone, and hardy tilapia are the main survivors (subject to periodic die-offs). Fish here as a stark, fascinating, and honestly diminished experience. Air-quality/odor advisories common.
What is here
- Features
- A once-legendary fishery in decline · Hardy tilapia survive rising salinity · Stark, surreal desert-sea landscape · A cautionary conservation story
- Wildlife
- birds
- Species
- Snow geese, eared grebes, pelicans, ibis, shorebirds, burrowing owls, 400+ species
- Amenities
- Most species of any Western refuge · Huge wintering flocks · Refuge auto routes & trails · Pacific Flyway crossroads
- Best for
- Massive-scale desert birding
- Features
- One of NA's top bird sites · Hundreds of thousands of birds · Surreal desert-sea setting · Easy auto-tour viewing
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Allowed
- Good for a first timer
- No
- Hazards
- Extreme summer heat · Strong odors & dust at times · Remote, limited services · Muddy/soft shorelines
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Fishing detail
- Water type
- lake
- Water
- fresh
- Methods
- Bait · Casting
- Boat
- both
- Target species
- Tilapia (the survivor) · Historic: corvina & croaker (largely gone)
- Intl tip
- License required. HONEST NOTE: the once-legendary fishery has largely collapsed with rising salinity — corvina and croaker are essentially gone; hardy tilapia (prone to die-offs) are what remain. It's a stark, surreal, diminished place — worth experiencing as a landscape and conservation story more than a fishing hotspot. Odor/air-quality advisories common. Bird-watching is world-class.
Wildlife Watching detail
- Viewing
- drive
- Effort
- easy
- Habitat
- wetland
- Sighting
- 5
- Viewing notes
- One of the most important — and surreal — bird sites in North America: a vast desert sea where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds gather on the Pacific Flyway
- Intl tip
- One of the most surreal and most important bird sites in North America — California's largest lake, an accidental salty inland sea in the Imperial Valley desert, at a crucial Pacific Flyway junction (400+ species). Cooler months peak: huge flocks of snow geese, tens of thousands of eared grebes, pelicans, ibis, shorebirds, and burrowing owls around the Sonny Bono refuge, viewed on easy auto routes. Harsh country: brutal summer heat (avoid), strong odors/dust, sparse services. Come Nov–Mar with water.
The guide
The Salton Sea, California's largest lake — an accidental inland sea created in 1905 when the Colorado River breached into the …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Salton Sea (Tilapia — a Fishery in Flux) — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.33, -115.85