Bluegill
Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) is a freshwater species. The first thing to check: a solid black flap at the rear edge of the gill cover, with no red or orange margin. The look-alike to rule out is Redear Sunfish: the redear's ear flap has a bright red or orange crescent on its edge, and it lacks the dark dorsal-fin blotch.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Lepomis macrochirus |
|---|---|
| Also called | bream, brim, sunfish, copperbelly |
| Water | Freshwater |
| Group | Sunfish |
| Temperature | Spawns and feeds most heavily between 70 and 80 °F. Beds appear when water reaches the high 60s. |
How to identify a Bluegill
- A solid black flap at the rear edge of the gill cover, with no red or orange margin.
- A dark blotch at the base of the rear of the soft dorsal fin — absent on most other sunfish.
- A very small mouth, barely wider than the eye, on a deep, round, laterally compressed body.
If you would rather not work through a key on a wet deck, photograph the fish and let the app name it — you get the common and the scientific name back, and the record is filed before you release.
Fish it is mistaken for
| Species | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Redear Sunfish | The redear's ear flap has a bright red or orange crescent on its edge, and it lacks the dark dorsal-fin blotch. |
| Green Sunfish | A green sunfish has a much bigger mouth, a longer body and pale wavy blue lines on the cheek. |
Side-by-side comparisons
Read the full entry for Redear Sunfish and Green Sunfish.
Where it lives
Ponds, lakes, reservoirs and slow river backwaters across almost all of North America. Holds over weed edges, brush and spawning flats in shallow water for much of the year.
Temperature
Spawns and feeds most heavily between 70 and 80 °F. Beds appear when water reaches the high 60s.
The conditions that matter
The bluegill calendar runs on water temperature and the moon: bedding waves cluster around full moons through late spring and summer once water passes about 68 °F. Logging water temperature and moon phase against your catches is the cleanest way to predict the next bedding wave on your own water.
Global Fishing League records 18 weather and water readings against every catch automatically — tide stage, barometric pressure, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, swell, current, moon phase and more, taken at your GPS position at the moment you log the fish. Over a season that turns a hunch about bluegill into a pattern you can read.
See every reading recorded with a catch, or the guides to what each reading means.
Size limits, bag limits and seasons
Size limits, bag limits, slot limits and seasons are set by your state wildlife agency — and for many offshore and migratory species by federal regulators — and on many waters they differ from the statewide rule. They also change between seasons. Check the current regulations for the exact water you are fishing before you keep a fish — we do not republish limits here, because a number that is a season out of date is worse than no number.
What the app does do is make your side of it accurate: every catch carries a length measured from the photograph, a GPS position and a timestamp, exportable if you ever need to show your work for a tournament or a record claim. It is also what a Global Fishing League entry is built from — a record that verifies itself, without publishing where you caught the fish.