Uni Harvesting in California

24 Sep 2026 - Warren Mar

Disclosure: I wrote this post with help from Claude. Regulations, limits, and license prices change, so verify the numbers yourself with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife before you go.

Uni (sea urchin) season is almost upon us. Sea urchins can be harvested year-round, but you want to get them when the gonads start plumping up between November and March. There are two types: the red ones (Mesocentrotus franciscanus), which you want because they are bigger, and the purple ones (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), which are a menace. The recreational abalone season closed in 2018 after purple sea urchins exploded in population and ate most of the kelp. They exploded in population after sea stars died from disease.

Fishing License

Anyone 16 or older needs a California sport fishing license to take sea urchins. Prices for 2026:

Annual license holders fishing in ocean waters south of Point Arguello (Santa Barbara County) also need an Ocean Enhancement Validation ($7.30).

Limits

The rules are in Title 14, Section 29.06 of the California Code of Regulations. The daily limit is 35 urchins for each species, counted separately, so you can take 35 red and 35 purple on the same day. Here’s how it breaks down:

• Red sea urchin: 35 per day.
• Purple sea urchin: 35 per day in most of the state. The limit is 40 gallons per day when skin or SCUBA diving in Humboldt, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties. There is no possession limit for purple urchins.
• Caspar Cove (Mendocino County): you can take any number of purple urchins, by hand or with hand-held tools, to help restore the kelp. This exception runs until April 1, 2029.

Tides

If you’re picking urchins from shore instead of diving, the tide decides your day. Go at low tide, and ideally a minus tide, when the water drops below the 0.0 ft mark on a tide chart and exposes rocks that are usually underwater. Get there about an hour before the low and head back as soon as the water starts coming in.

In California the lowest daytime tides fall in the afternoon and evening during winter, and in the early morning during summer. The winter afternoon lows line up nicely with the best months for uni.

Divers care more about swell and visibility than tide height. Look for small swell and calm wind, and plan the dive around slack tide when the current is weakest. Whatever you’re doing, never turn your back on the ocean. Sneaker waves knock people off rocks every year.

Tide predictions from NOAA:

• All California tide stations (map)
• North Spit (Humboldt Bay)
• Arena Cove (Mendocino)
• Point Reyes
• San Francisco
• Monterey
• Santa Barbara
• La Jolla

For swell and wind, check the nearest buoy on the National Data Buoy Center map.

Good Days From San Francisco, 2026-2027 Season

These are the daytime minus tides from October 2026 through March 2027, using NOAA predictions for Point Reyes. Tides along the Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino coast run within about half an hour of these, but check the station closest to where you’re going. Each date links to NOAA’s chart for that day. October is thin: the only minus tides come at dusk on October 25 and 26, so those are marginal. From November on, every date is -0.5 ft or lower. The lower the number, the more rock you’ll have to work with.

The best stretches are around December 22, January 19 to 21, and February 17 to 20. A winter low that close to sunset leaves little light, so get there early and bring a headlamp. Several well-known tide pool spots near the city, like Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and Duxbury Reef, are Marine Protected Areas where you can’t take urchins, so check the Marine Protected Areas map before you go.

Recipes

Good uni needs very little. Keep it cold and eat it within a day or two.

• On the half shell: Crack the urchin, rinse out the dark gut and grit with cold seawater, and eat the lobes straight from the shell with a squeeze of lemon or a drop of soy sauce.
• Uni don: Lay the lobes over a bowl of warm sushi rice with a little shredded nori, wasabi, and soy sauce.
• Uni pasta: Mash about 2 ounces of uni with 2 tablespoons of butter and a splash of cream. Toss with hot spaghetti and a little pasta water off the heat so the uni melts into a sauce instead of cooking. Top with a few whole lobes, lemon zest, and chives.
• Uni butter: Blend equal parts uni and softened butter with a pinch of salt. Spread it on toast, melt it over steak, or stir it into scrambled eggs at the end.
• Uni toast: Put the lobes on buttered, toasted bread with flaky salt. Simple and hard to beat.

Sources

• California Recreational Ocean Fishing Regulations: Invertebrates (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Invertebrates of Interest: Sea Urchin (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Red Sea Urchin Enhanced Status Report: Management (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Marine Invertebrate Recreational Regulations (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Fishing Licenses (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Marine Protected Areas (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 14, § 29.06: Purple Sea Urchin (Legal Information Institute)
• California Fish and Game Commission Extends Red Abalone Recreational Fishery Closure (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
• Tide Predictions (NOAA Tides & Currents)
• National Data Buoy Center (NOAA)