Bonefish
Bonefish (Albula vulpes) is a saltwater species. The first thing to check: bright chrome-silver flanks that mirror the bottom, with faint darker dorsal shading. The look-alike to rule out is Ladyfish: ladyfish have a terminal, upward-facing mouth and hunt in the water column rather than nosing the bottom.
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| Scientific name | Albula vulpes |
|---|---|
| Also called | grey ghost, banana fish, macabi |
| Water | Saltwater |
| Group | Bonefish |
| Temperature | Comfortable from 72 to 88 °F; leaves the flats when water drops below about 68 °F. |
How to identify a Bonefish
- Bright chrome-silver flanks that mirror the bottom, with faint darker dorsal shading.
- A conical, pointed snout with the mouth set underneath for rooting in sand.
- A deeply forked tail and a single soft-rayed dorsal fin.
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 |
|---|---|
| Ladyfish | Ladyfish have a terminal, upward-facing mouth and hunt in the water column rather than nosing the bottom. |
| Mullet | Mullet have a blunt head, two separate dorsal fins and school without tailing behaviour. |
Read the full entry for Ladyfish.
Where it lives
Shallow tropical and subtropical flats — the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. Feeds nose-down on sand and turtle grass flats, tailing in inches of water.
Temperature
Comfortable from 72 to 88 °F; leaves the flats when water drops below about 68 °F.
The conditions that matter
Bonefishing is tide fishing with almost nothing else to it. Fish move onto a flat with the flooding water to feed and are pushed off as it falls, and the productive window on a given flat may be ninety minutes. Wind direction changes actual water height against prediction, and cloud cover decides whether you can see them at all. Tide stage, wind and cloud cover per catch is the entire pattern.
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 bonefish 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.