Derned if y'don't learn sumpthin' ever' day! Here I've been patronizing the mudcat website for years and I never knew exactly what a mudcat was. Now it turns out that the mudcat is better known--in Minnesota anyway--as the bullhead. We have three kinds: yellow bullhead Ameiurus natalis, black bullhead A. melas, and brown bullhead A. nebulosus.

I have caught them and eaten them--but that was back before I realized it would get you laughed at by most serious Minnesota fishermen. Bullheads are mostly found in the shallow muddy lakes of southern Minnesota, but every Minnesotan knows that the good fishing is Up Nort' in the rocky deep lakes that harbor walleyes, muskies, bass, crappies, etc.