How to Follow Advisories

Watch our video How to Use Fish Advisories or follow the steps below.

1. Find the water body where you want to fish

• Click on Fish Advisories. Water bodies that have advisories are listed alphabetically. You can use the search functions to filter by water body name, county, or species.
• Or, use the Advisory Map to find fish advisories by location.

2. Find the advice for you and your family

• After you click on an advisory, scroll down to look at the advice based on gender and age.
• We provide separate guidelines for people who are more sensitive to contaminants compared to the general population.

The sensitive population includes women 18 to 49 years old and children 1 to 17 years old. Learn why they are more sensitive.

The general population includes women 50 years and older and men 18 years and older.

• Next, find the type of fish you plan to eat. We provide advice only for species with enough data. If a water body where you want to fish does not have an advisory, follow one of our statewide fish advisories for
  • Lakes and reservoirs without site-specific advice,
  • Rivers, streams, and creeks without site-specific advice,
  • Coastal locations without site-specific advice, or
  • Fish that migrate between California rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters   

3. Things to note

• It is important to note the "Or" between the columns because you should not combine servings. For example, if you eat a fish in the one serving per week group, you should wait until the next week to eat another fish from anywhere else, including fish purchased at a store or restaurant. That one serving of fish should be the only fish you eat that week. If you choose a fish from the two servings a week column, you can combine fish species from that column as long as your total does not exceed two servings.
• One serving is eight ounces before cooking, or about the size and thickness of your hand for fish fillets. Always give children smaller portions.

• Fish species that have higher levels of omega-3s are shown with a heart icon () when OEHHA recommends that they can be eaten at least once a week.