Yellowtail Snapper
Yellowtail Snapper (Ocyurus chrysurus) is a saltwater species. The first thing to check: a broad bright yellow stripe running from the snout through the eye and widening into a fully yellow, deeply forked tail. The look-alike to rule out is Lane Snapper: lane snapper have a dark flank blotch and horizontal pink-yellow stripes across the whole body, not a single broad stripe running into the tail.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Ocyurus chrysurus |
|---|---|
| Also called | flag, tail, rabirubia |
| Water | Saltwater |
| Group | Snapper |
| Temperature | Common between about 72 and 84 °F. |
How to identify a Yellowtail Snapper
- A broad bright yellow stripe running from the snout through the eye and widening into a fully yellow, deeply forked tail.
- Yellow spots scattered above the stripe on a blue-silver back.
- A slender, streamlined body and small mouth compared with other snappers.
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 |
|---|---|
| Lane Snapper | Lane snapper have a dark flank blotch and horizontal pink-yellow stripes across the whole body, not a single broad stripe running into the tail. |
| Blue Runner | Blue runners are a jack with scutes along the tail base and a black spot on the gill cover. |
Read the full entry for Lane Snapper and Blue Runner.
Where it lives
Florida, the Keys, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Hovers well above coral reef and hard bottom in loose schools, feeding higher in the column than other snappers.
Temperature
Common between about 72 and 84 °F.
The conditions that matter
Yellowtail feed up in the water column, so they are the reef snapper most dependent on current: a steady flow carrying a chum slick back off the stern is what brings them up, and slack water shuts the fishing down. Tide stage and current direction per catch is the pattern worth recording.
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 yellowtail snapper 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.