Warmouth
Warmouth (Lepomis gulosus) is a freshwater species. The first thing to check: three to five dark red-brown lines radiating backwards from a red eye across the cheek. The look-alike to rule out is Rock Bass: rock bass also have a red eye, but carry neat rows of dark spots along the scale rows and six anal fin spines against the warmouth's three.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Lepomis gulosus |
|---|---|
| Also called | goggle-eye, rock bass, mud bass, stumpknocker |
| Water | Freshwater |
| Group | Sunfish |
| Temperature | Active from the high 60s into the mid-80s °F. |
How to identify a Warmouth
- Three to five dark red-brown lines radiating backwards from a red eye across the cheek.
- A large mouth for a sunfish, the upper jaw reaching to below the middle of the eye or past it.
- A patch of small teeth on the tongue, which no other common Lepomis has.
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 |
|---|---|
| Rock Bass | Rock bass also have a red eye, but carry neat rows of dark spots along the scale rows and six anal fin spines against the warmouth's three. |
| Green Sunfish | Green sunfish have pale blue-green cheek lines rather than red-brown, a dark eye, and a longer, more slender body. |
Side-by-side comparisons
Read the full entry for Rock Bass and Green Sunfish.
Where it lives
Swampy, weedy, mucky water across the Southeast and the Mississippi basin — oxbows, canals, sloughs and vegetated lake margins. Ambushes from thick cover and stumps.
Temperature
Active from the high 60s into the mid-80s °F.
The conditions that matter
Warmouth tolerate warm, still, low-oxygen water that pushes other sunfish out, so they are often what is left biting in a backwater in high summer. They are an ambush fish rather than a roamer, so cover and clarity matter more than weather.
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 warmouth 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.