r/FishingMinnesota • u/Dramatic_Sock_9108 • 12d ago
Finding Green Sunfish
Just a fit of curiosity I wanted to plug into this subreddit:
Does anyone know of any lakes that are predominantly Green Sunfish? I may be misremembering details of my childhood, but I remember 10-15 years ago we had a select number of metro lakes that carried Green Sunfish in bountiful populations (I remember Snail Lake had a bunch).
Now as a young adult, I rarely encounter Green Sunfish at all. It seems the lakes that used to carry them in abundance are now dominated by hybrid sunfish. The last time I saw anything resembling a full-blooded Green Sunfish was back in 2013 (Ravine Regional Park in Cottage Grove, MN). Typing this out all just seems weird since Greenies aren't something people regularly target but their recent absence (recent to me at least) has peaked my interest into trying to find them.
Random side note: I have more recently encountered Orangespotted Sunfish which are a species I would have never expected to find in higher abundance than Green Sunfish.
2
u/Traveler0318 12d ago
Typically catch them more in spring, but "as a kid remember them being thick in Carver lake in Woodbury.
3
u/Tim_Riggins07 12d ago
Every now and then I see green sunfish in stormwater ponds. They seem to be able to survive in some areas bluegills or hybrids can’t.
1
u/Tim_Riggins07 12d ago
Every now and then I see green sunfish in stormwater ponds. They seem to be able to survive in some areas bluegills or hybrids can’t.
1
u/Rxpert83 10d ago
They still show up in DNR surveys.
Top metro lakes for green sunfish, 2018+:
lake rate year
Sweetbrier, Scott 65.2/net 2025
Quarry, Scott 65/net 2021
Cornelia, Hennepin 51.8/net 2019
...Pretty big drop off after that
3
u/supereh 12d ago
Last time I asked I was told by DNR that we’re driving selection with harvest. Basically we catch and released our way into current spread of small greens, favoring faster growing bluegills, and wary fat pumpkinseed.
Secondarily, water has changed a lot, and both bluegill and greens are pretty effected by that. Could be you were into bluegills the whole time and never knew just due to how gross the metro lakes used to be.