Green Sunfish
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) is a freshwater species. The first thing to check: a large mouth for a sunfish — the upper jaw reaches back to below the middle of the eye. The look-alike to rule out is Bluegill: a bluegill has a tiny mouth and a deep, round body; the green sunfish is longer with a mouth several times the size.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Lepomis cyanellus |
|---|---|
| Also called | green perch, rubbertail |
| Water | Freshwater |
| Group | Sunfish |
| Temperature | Tolerant from the 50s well into the high 80s °F, feeding best in the 70s. |
How to identify a Green Sunfish
- A large mouth for a sunfish — the upper jaw reaches back to below the middle of the eye.
- Pale blue-green wavy lines across the cheek and gill cover on an olive body.
- Cream to yellow edges on the dorsal, anal and tail fins, and a longer, more bass-like body than a bluegill.
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 |
|---|---|
| Bluegill | A bluegill has a tiny mouth and a deep, round body; the green sunfish is longer with a mouth several times the size. |
| Warmouth | Warmouth have dark red-brown lines radiating back from a red eye; green sunfish have blue-green cheek lines and a dark eye. |
Read the full entry for Bluegill and Warmouth.
Where it lives
Extremely widespread and extremely tolerant — small creeks, farm ponds, ditches, and the warm shallow ends of reservoirs, including water too poor in oxygen for other sunfish.
Temperature
Tolerant from the 50s well into the high 80s °F, feeding best in the 70s.
The conditions that matter
Green sunfish tolerate low dissolved oxygen and high temperature better than almost any other sunfish, so they keep feeding in the warm, still, low-oxygen conditions that shut down bluegill. If your logbook shows green sunfish arriving as bluegill drop off, that is usually oxygen, not luck.
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 green sunfish 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.