It is a demersal fish that lives on sandy and muddy bottoms in estuaries and near shore areas, at depths of up to 550 metres (1,800 ft).

Its native habitat is the eastern Pacific, stretching from the coast of Baja California in the south to the Bering Sea in the north.

[7] The diet of the English sole consists of zoobenthos organisms, primarily marine worms, molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms.

Two fisheries exist: one on the West Coast of the United States, off Washington, Oregon and California, and one in the Bering Sea off Alaska.

[3] This decline is estimated to be due to a combination of market factors and management restrictions placed on fishing trawlers in order to protect other bottom-dwelling species.