Fish Species: Identification, Habitat and How to Catch Each One
The fish species anglers chase, from largemouth bass to catfish: how to tell each one apart, where it lives, when it bites and what to throw at it.
North America has more than a thousand fish species and anglers chase a few dozen of them, and almost every question about any of those fish is one of five: what does it look like next to the fish it gets confused with, where does it live, when does it feed and spawn, what does it eat, and what do you tie on to catch it. Each species has one page here that answers those five, with the numbers from the state agencies, the federal fact sheets and the record books, so a spawning temperature or a record weight you read here can be checked against where it came from.
Start here
- Bass — largemouth, smallmouth, spotted, Alabama and Guadalupe bass: the most fished-for freshwater fish in the United States, and the fish most lures were designed for.
- Catfish — channel, blue and flathead catfish and the bullheads: the biggest fish most anglers will ever catch from a bank, and the ones most often eaten.
- Lures — what to tie on for each fish and why it works.
- Gear — the rod, reel, line and hooks each species calls for.
What every species page tells you
| Section | What it answers | Where the facts come from |
|---|---|---|
| Identification | How to tell it from its look-alikes: fin ray counts, jaw length, colour, tooth patches | State agency field guides (Missouri, Texas, Florida and others), university museum keys |
| Range and habitat | Native and introduced range, water type, depth and cover by season | USFWS and USGS species profiles, state agencies |
| Season and behaviour | Spawning temperature and timing, feeding thresholds, the seasonal pattern anglers fish | Agency biology for the numbers, named tournament anglers and guides for the tactics |
| How to catch them | Lures, baits, rigs and tackle, phrased as the consensus of the sources, never as a test done for this site | Bassmaster, In-Fisherman, Wired2Fish, guide interviews |
| Size, records, rules | Typical size, state and world records with their story, a pointer to the state regulations page | IGFA, state record lists, agency rule books |
Freshwater and saltwater
The species are grouped by what the angler needs, not by taxonomy. Freshwater covers the black basses, the catfishes, trout, crappie and the other panfish, walleye, pike, carp, salmon and steelhead. Saltwater covers the inshore and offshore fish of the coasts: redfish, snook, seatrout, flounder, tarpon, grouper, snapper, halibut, sea bass and tuna. Striped bass and salmon live in both worlds and get one page each rather than two. Bass and catfish are live now; the rest follow, freshwater first.
A few fish carry more than one common name, and a few names cover more than one fish. “Bass” alone is a guitar as often as a fish on Google; “catfish” is a television show as often as an animal. The species pages use the agency’s accepted common name in the title and list the regional names in the identification section, so a Texan looking for a “yellow cat” and a Kansan looking for a “shovelhead” both land on the flathead catfish page.
Names change, records change
Taxonomy moves. The 2022 genomic revision of the black basses renamed the largemouth bass Micropterus nigricans and split the Florida bass off as its own species; the IGFA followed in 2024 with seven new record categories and a genetic-verification rule for any new largemouth record. Records move too: the spotted bass all-tackle record was reset in 2025 because the earlier “spotted bass” records turned out to be Alabama bass. The species pages give the current name with the older one in brackets and date every record, so the page stays right when the next revision comes.
Where to go next
Pick the fish, then the lure, then the tackle. The lure section explains each lure type once, how it moves and when it wins, and the gear section does the same for rods, reels, line, hooks and electronics, so a species page can say “a 7 ft medium-heavy and a Texas rig” and send you to the page that explains both.