Hey everyone, I recently acquired a fish tank and wanted to put a green sunfish in it. I have heard that they are aggressive and wanted to catch or trap one. I was wondering what your go to bait/lure is for Green Sunfish. I was hoping to maybe filter out bluegill, red ear, and other sunfish bites and focus on getting a Green Sunfish bite. Also, if you were going to maybe trap one, what would you put in the cage? 

A worm. A real one. You’ll just have to keep catching them until you get a greeny. 

 

If you have not already you should probably check on the legality of keeping fish in your state. 

A bit of a night crawler as mentioned above is probably the fastest way.  I catch them all the time on smaller bass lures too like a TRD. They like rocks and will take a shot at pretty much anything that dares to cross their path.

get some super small hooks, like #24 and dice a hot dog into tiny tiny pieces and use that. Im assuming you want a small one to watch grow plus it will be easier to feed at first.. If you use a #8 or 10 hook and a half a nightcrawler or a whole redworm you will catch the full-grown ones. 

You might want to check the local laws on keeping local fauna.  In some places it's against the law, and if you're caught, you lose your fishing license.  Seems kind of dumb, but just want to let you know.

I used to catch dozens of them a week to use as bait for big catfish. A 1/80oz jighead with about 1/2" of 2" orange grub or trout worm threaded on and dipped around rocks and any other piece of cover along the shoreline catches them very well. 

@FishOnLMB,

You list your location as CA (which I assume is California).  Be aware that the current California freshwater sport fishing regulations have a provision on "Movement of Live Fish" that states that "live fin fish may not be transported alive from the water where taken."  Maybe if you wrote to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and told them you will put the fish in an aquarium (and never let it go into a body of water) they can issue you a special permit (how does BPS get their fish for the tanks they have in their stores?).  If they let you keep your green sunfish, it would probably count against your bag/possession limit of 25 sunfish/crappie. 

Smallest mini-mite cubby jig. It's a 1/64 jig with a skinny straight body and boot tail, maybe an inch long. They're panfish killers, green sunfish love them. I like the chartreuse head with a white body.