John,

I haven't handled a bullhead since I was a kid, but take my word for it, you don't want to try to eat these little fish. The freshwater fish, and the larger salt water ones Deckman described from Puget Sound, are inedible.

We had a cabin at Lake Whatcom in the very northwestern part of Washington State, and our family spent many summers there. We caught some very nice rainbows and cutthroats and silvers, usually trolling, and when we were just dangling a line off of the dock, we caught bullheads. My parents may have humored my brother and I about cooking one once, or maybe I just took my father's word for it that he tried when he was a kid and you can't eat them, but whatever the source, I've known since I was big enough to fish (and that wasn't very big!) that you can't eat those.

As an adult I'm sure I could figure out how to handle them. As a kid, I got poked a few times trying to retreive my hooks.

SRS