Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?

Subject: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: rangeroger
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 12:47 AM

In a catfish manner of speaking.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Mbo
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 12:50 AM

I'm not sure...but my Mudcat Guitar certainly had a bullhead!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: roopoo
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 02:31 PM

From my memories of catching bullheads when I was a kid, it'd have to be an extrememly small banjo! Do they get bullheads in the US?

mouldy

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 02:36 PM

A Mudcat is also known as a flathead

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: MMario
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 02:41 PM

I picture them as channel cats. The largest I've seen live filled a bathtub end to end.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 02:58 PM

A friend of mine caught an 85 pound catfish in The Tennessee River. I have heard of ones weighing over 200 pounds and legend has it that down by Wheeler Dam they get up to as much as 500 pounds. Don't know what variety of catfish that is though.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 03:03 PM

Here's one resource

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 03:30 PM

Only in the Rant threads.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: GUEST,paddymac
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 12:06 PM

In an earlier incarnation I was actually an ichtyologist, but haven't stayed current. However, as of about ten years ago, Mudcats and Bullheads were all taxonomically placed in the same family (Ictaluridae) and genus (Ictalurus), but in different sub-genera. As I recall, there were then recognized four species in the subgenus containing the "mudcat" (i.e.; the larger species), including the channel cat, the blue cat, the brown cat, and the spotted cay. You have to be careful about using the common names, because thay are frequently applied to several distinct species. I recall that the "blue cat" was the one most commonly called the "mudcat", and specimens of 150-200 pounds and 6 feet in length were reported in the early days from the Mississippi River. Mostly due to the intense fishery pressure, such large specimens are no longer seen. These species were originally fairly wide-spread east of the rockies. Bullheads, by contrast, were smaller (rarely over a foot in length and a couple of pounds weight))and originally confined to areas east of the Missippii River. Both groups have since been widely introduced in areas far beyond their original distributions. So, as to the original question, "are mudcats and bullheads the same?", the answer is no, but they are close cousins.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 12:12 PM

Nice one, Praise!!!!

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 12:19 PM

Wow, the things you learn on the 'Cat! Thanks, Paddymac! Your erudition is a delight.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: MMario
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 12:24 PM

amos? you can talk about enjoying someone's erudition in public? I thought your ISP could pull your account for that?

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: roopoo
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 01:31 PM

Yep, just goes to prove that things are bigger in America: the bullheads I used to catch in North Derbyshire were 4 inches at the biggest!!

mouldy

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Biskit
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 02:39 PM

I know that the thread was about mud/bull heads respectivly however, since it was brought up you can still find blue cats(the largest variety) in the Ohio river weighing between 200 and 500 pounds most recently at the lock and dams just below Louisville, Ky.Where on occasion they'll get caught in the gates of the locks -Biskit-

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: rangeroger
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 11:20 PM

Refresh in honor of Dachshound-eating catfish.

rr

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 12:11 PM

I've seen the head of a blue cat (Upper River, above Hannibal, MO) that measured about 18 to 20 inches in diameter. It was only the head, the result of cleaning by (probably) a commercial fisher.

Back in the early '60s a hard hat diver went down to inspect bridge piers on the bridge at Quincy, IL. He returned to the surface with tales of two eight-foot long catfish he had seen and which weren't happy with him being there.

LaSalle reported catfish and sturgeon as long as his canoe, and I've had some personal experiences on The River that lead me to believe that not all of the BIG fish are gone.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 02:42 PM

Out here on the West coast of America, Washington state and Puget Sound to be exact, we have a breed of fish we call the "bullhead." It lives up (down?) to it's name in that's it's ugly, about one third of the fish is all head, has two long and sharp spines that go rearward from it's skull, and is useless as a food fish. They thrive in the shallow beach areas of salt water. They average about 6 inches in length, but may go as big as 12 inches. There ... isn't it amazing what you'll learn on MUDCAT! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 02:57 PM

I'm a Mudcatter and I'm bullheaded, does that count?

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:25 PM

My wife has called me bullheaded for years, and my mother before that.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 10:34 PM

WHAT ... "Your wife called your Mother bullheaded" SHHHHEUH! Bob

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:07 PM

Why not? My mother was as much of German descent as I am. Actually, my wife says "bullheaded Kraut." I then mention something about "stubborn Micks" and we both start laughing.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 02:14 PM

Maybe we should stop calling them BS threas and call them BH threads instead.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 06:59 AM

In the UK a Bullhead, is also known as a Miller's Thumb because of their shape, and the current record for this species stands at 1 ounce!! They have nasty spines which can cause infection if you get pricked by them.
We have only one species of Catfish here, and that is the European Catfish or Wels, See here
it is an introduced species in Britain, having been brought over from the european mainland.
Giok

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 05:37 AM

GOOD GRIEF! I just read the description of their feeding habits. They sound like my first wife! Bob

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 02:30 PM

I've only had catfish once in my life, but it was absolutely delicious!! Kinda hard to come by up here in salmon country. Fortunately I love salmon, too, but it's getting so damned expensive!

(Gettin' on to lunchtime. I think I have a can of kipper snacks out in the cupboard.)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 03:18 PM

Now a dogfish of course is a kind of small shark, and you can buy a portion in any chippy. Except they call it "rock salmon".

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 03:37 PM

Smooth Hound, Starry Hound, Spur Dog, Lesser Spotted Dog Fish, Huss, Rock Salmon, Shark of all species. They are all edible, and they all have the ammonia taste, unless "hung" for a couple of days, which removes the nasty tang. Skate also have this ammonia taste, and they are usually slit along the edges of their wings, and allowed to "bleed out" the ammonia. They are mostly all cartiliginous [?] fish, having only a central segmented bone, and none of the nasty little rib bones of other fish. Bet you're glad you mentioned it now Kevin :-).....Giok

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 05:19 PM

Bullheads in my area (North Ontario)are called "Brown Bullheads" by the MNR. My grandfather always called them Barr-butts and they were a type of catfish, about a foot long at most. Some of my earliest memories are of fishing for them at night with my dad and grandpa, sitting on a wide culvert in the dark at Twin Lakes, St Joseph Island, struggling to hold a long heavy bamboo cane pole across my knees and hoisting up a 2 pound Barr-butt over my head onto the road behind. We kept going till we has a big metal washtub full. Took about 2 hours. Good eating, if you got `em early enough in the season before they got too wormy. They can live long out of water too. They'd be croaking (the sound, not the cease-to-be vernacular) all night long in the tub (no water in it) and still be flipping around in the morning when we went out to clean `em in the morning. Cleaning was a real chore. You had to use pliers to peel the thick scaleless skin off them and snap off the three spines at the root.

Dogfish was another name locally for what was also called lush, ling, bowfin or snake. Big, ugly, slow, useless and full of shit which they squirted all over your boat when you hauled them in. Best to just cut the line near the hook, if you were baitfishing.

Near as I can tell, the UK bullhead is what we call here a mudpout (and the biology books call a sculpin). Used to catch tons of `em by turning over rocks in the creeks and ditches around here when I was a kid. Made good bait for bass, pike and pickerel (which the Yanks call walleye). Haven't seen one in years. Crayfish was good bait too and could be found by the same method. Same with bloodsuckers (leeches).

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Gypsy
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 11:24 AM

Yeah, Bob! We call them bullheads too, think the real name is Capezone. Pronounced like Calzone. Can be good eating,if yer willing to clean a fish for the two or three bites along the back!

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Cluin
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 11:36 PM

There are some pretty big catfish out there and some people have some dangerous ways of catching them.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonomous?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 06:41 PM

This topic has also been discussed recently in the thread Req: Picture, Mudcat (fish). That thread contains links to some pictures.

See also Help: What IS a Mudcat?

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 07:10 PM

Hi Gypsy ... NO, NO, NO. The Calzone is a different rock fish totally, IF I'm correct. I used to rock fish down there in the Northern California coast and we caught all kinds of strange kritters. The Calzone was quite prized and was delicous.

And, as to DOGFISH. Nobody has larger dogfish than we do here in the Puget Sound area ... up to four and a half feet. I grew up catching and disposing of them. And yes, they are a shark. About 20 years ago, some idiot living in this area published a book of dogfish recipes. The reason that they smell so strongly of ammonia is that this animal exudes it's urine through it's skin. His suggestion was to fillet the meat and soak it for 24 hours in milk. All that resulted in was a whole bunch of evil smelling milk and inedible fish.

However, I have read that the Brits do somehow prepare and serve dogfish as their standard fare for what we Americans "Fish and Chips."

I'd love it if someone could educate me, realizing that it might be a daunting task, as to the method of making dogfish edible.

CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 04:50 AM

Well Bob the Dogfish we eat here is also known as Rock Salmon or Huss. I suspect that it is almost always the Lesser Spotted Dogfish 'Scyliorhinus Canicula' although the Starry Smooth Hound 'Mustelus Asterias' and the Spurdog 'Squalus Acanthias, are eaten too. These have less ammonia than other varieties, and if you can be bothered to skin them, which is hard work, they make good eating. Being what I believe is called cartiliginous, they only have one central bone, and thus are easy to eat, there being no finicky little bits to trap the elderly and unwary. Anyway Rock and Chips is food for the gods, but we can't get it here in Scotland, where the fish mainly used for fish and chips is the Haddock.
Giok

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 05:04 AM

I ate a dogfish once, up in Loch Dromnabuie(sp?). The skinning was a problem,carried out eventually by nailing its head to a piece of wood, and then getting at it with a knife and pliers. It was sort of indifferent to eat, nothing great about it, but definitely not disgustingly ammonia flavoured.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 08:54 AM

Gut your dogfish cut off all the fins,make a V shaped cut at the back of the head, prise the corner up, grip it with a pair of pliers, hang fish on nail, and pull like buggery. Fries up nicely in butter and olive oil 50/50.[The fish, not the skin!]
Giok

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 05:11 PM

The Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Fishes, Whales & Dolphins does not show "mudcat" as the name of any North American fish. As used in Fish and Game departments in Kansas and nearby states, the term "mudcat" has traditionally (not necessarily scientifically) been used to distinguish all catfish who characteristically live in slow flowing, silty, and sometimes "brackish" water from those catfish that are usually found in streams with significant free flow.

According to this usage, almost any catfish other than a "channel catfish" is a mudcat. According to this tradition, the name "channel catfish" was, in fact, created to distinguish this fish from "all of the others," which are 'mudcats.' Also, where this traditional usage is current, the channel catfish and the blue catfish are about the only representatives of the category "not mudcat" in the (edible) catfish family.

The blue catfish was not recognized as a distinct type prior to the naming of the channel catfish, and shares many characteristics with the channel cat. When small, the two are almost indistinguishable, with the only accepted identification being to count the number of rays (bones) in the lateral fins. There is a difference, by two, in the number of bones in the laterals, between blues and channels. (Blues have become so rare here that I don't recall with certainty, but I believe the blue has two bones more than the channel in each lateral fin.)

There are a number of "historical" photos of very large Kansas catfish, up to 6 feet or more in length and reportedly up to 400 pounds or a little more, most of which are presumed to have been blues. Because of the difficulty of distinguishing the specific species, the notorious inaccuracy of trading post scales, and the stubborn refusal of the gamefish people to accept dynamite as a "sporting method," all of these are denied listing in "official" records.

The virtual disappearance of blue catfish from the central part of the nation is more accurately attributed to the damming of rivers and streams than to overfishing. Both blues and channels require free flowing waters for successful spawning, with the blues apparently being even more susceptible than channels to failure of the spawn (largely due to fungal attack of the immature eggs, if not "cleaned" by flowing water). Blues needed to migrate upstream, to find clear flowing water, to spawn; and when their passage was blocked by dams, the spawns became largely unsuccessful. There has been some resurgence where newer dams incorporate continuous flow spillways, and the blues can use the spillway flow; but older "industrial" dams generally permitted a flow only when flow was wanted to "turn the wheel." A massive dam building surge in the 1930s (which reportedly gave Kansas more man-made lakes than any other state) generally used simple earthen dams with nothing but an "overflow" spillway, who's intermittent flow would not support blue catfish passage or downstream reproduction.

The current Kansas record for blue cat is 94 pounds, 57 inches long, caught on rod and reel with shad bait in 2000. (US record, 116 lb 12 oz, Arkansas) Obviously, the blues are not "gone," but there are none of the big old boys left.

The largest catfish on record in Kansas is the state record flathead catfish, at 123 pounds, 63 inches long, caught in 1998. (Perhaps surprisingly, that is currently the US record flathead.) Catches in the 60 pound range are not too uncommon here.

The record channel catfish, for Kansas, is "only" 34 lb 11 oz, 40 inches long. (US record is 58 lb, North Carolina.) While I know several people who claim to have caught channel cats near, or a little over our state record size, fish in this range are common enough that it's likely many are not submitted for recording before being eaten.

The "bullhead" in Kansas is any of a few recognized and specifically identifiable species, primarily black bullheads and a few brown bullheads, with a Kansas record of 7 lb 5.4 oz, 24.5 inches long, caught in 1985. Although tiny, the bullhead is a very game fish. I can imagine that anyone who hooked a 7 pound bullhead would think (s)he had something more like a 20 pound channel on the line. (The US record black bullhead is 7 lb 7 oz, New York; brown bullhead is 11 lb 5/8 oz, Washington; yellow bullhead is 7 lb 5 oz, Illinois. Kansas records don't list these separately due to the small number found here.)

The Audobon Field Guide indicates 5 genera and 39 species of "bullhead catfishes (Ictaluridae)" native to North America, using the name "bullhead" interchangeably with the genus "Ictaluridae," and hence including virtually all (except flathead, Pylodictis olivaris) North American catfish under that name. Most fishers (of catfish) would say that's an improper usage, probably the result of consulting some professor who wouldn't know which end of the worm to stick the hook into (it matters).

While Audobon uses "bullhead" for the entire genus Ictalurus (hence making any catfish, except the flathead, a bullhead), there are numerous "bullhead" named species, including the black bullhead, yellow bullhead, brown bullhead, and spotted bullhead. Those who fish for them, or for other catfish, generally use "bullhead" only in the species sense.

To complicate things, the whole genus Noturus, which includes the madtoms and stonecats, are not, according to Audobon, bullheads, but many of these are called bullheads in local vernacular. Perhaps fortunately, most of these are fairly localized in habitat. The people who accidentally step on a madtom while wading are entitled to call it anything they want, which is usually something like "#@$!\*!!." (Only stonecats and madtoms actually have venomous spines, although a few others feel like they do when the "fin" you.)

In colloquial "fishperson" usage, madtoms and stonecats are not included when speaking generically of "catfish," since they're not usually considered edible. It avoids having to end every sentence with "except the &%^@# madtoms."

Persons who actively fish for large catfish in my area comprise a subculture with rich traditions and lore, and with camaraderie akin to that of a bunch of ruggers. Normal people avoid them.

Persons who actually catch significant numbers of large catfish (by "legal" methods) are a distinctly separate and much smaller subculture. They are characteristically secretive, spend long hours lurking in dark places, and are so antisocial that most people don't fully believe in their existence. (Sort of like "the armadillo that made it across the road." Can't happen.)

John

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: rangeroger
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 01:49 PM

A big thank you to whatever joeclone corrected my mispelling of the thread title. It's bothered me ever since I started this thread.

rr

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 02:09 PM

Bob,

There is a freshwater variety of the bullhead, only gets to 5 or 6 inches long. Bullheads, whether fresh or salt water variety, have those nasty spines behind the head--you might as well cut off the line as try to retreive the hook, because you'll just get stabbed by those spines. The fish is 1/3 head and 100% slime.

I agree about the dogfish, it's a little shark that is as inedible as the bullhead.

I WOULD take issue with the crack about Norma, however. . . I always thought she was a nice lady. (Some of us have longer memories than you might give us credit for!).

Maggie

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 10:24 PM

I don't know if a milk marinade would help remove the ammonia smell from fish, but milk does wonders if you soak venison steaks in it.

Try getting some catfish from the store (farm raised cat), peel off any skin fragments left on it, and soak it all day covered in beer (cheap beer is fine). As the oil rises, skim it off; replace beer if you have to. Bake it, treating it as you would any good white fish (cod, etc.). If you don't like the taste of catfish, this will pleasantly surprise you.

Now, I happen to LIKE catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in lard, with a good coleslaw and some COLD beer...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 10:24 PM

SRS -

All of the freshwater catfish have spines that can give you a pretty nasty poke. Getting "finned" is most likely with the small ones. It's not hard, however, to learn to get a grip on them that lets you handle them without much "collateral damage."

The "standard" grip is from the top, with the first and second fingers on either side of one lateral (side) fin, and the thumb behind the lateral fin on the other side. On very small ones, you have to watch out for the big spike on top, but I don't think I've been "stuck" using this grip on the last couple of hundred I've caught. (It's been quite a few years since I fished much, so maybe I only remember the nice ones.)

The alternate, preferred by some, is just to stick your thumb in their mouth and pinch the lower jaw. They don't have teeth - although the inside of the jaws are like rough sandpaper. I've used this method with some rather large ones - too big to get a hand across the back, but often replace the fingers with a pair of pliers for a more "secure" grip on a larger one.

All of the freshwater bullheads I've tried have been quite tasty. In fact, much to be preferred to the farm raised commercial channel catfish - the only thing you're likely to be offered in a restaurant - or even to "wild" channel cats. The bullheads are small, and most of it is head (a little less than a third, actually), but what's left is very good (if from "good water"). I would probably release anything under about a 1.5 pound bullhead though, because of the relatively small snack provided by smaller ones, while a 1 to 1.5 pound channel is ideal plate size.

John

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 10:49 PM

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

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 11:39 PM

In East Texas and Louisiana, up until around 1930, channel cats in excess of 1000 pounds were occasionally taken. They must be like carp - grow 'till you die. Those days are long gone.

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Aug 03 - 04:04 AM

While sea fishing, sometimes I will catch a Weaver Fish, another one of the big head nasty spines family. The best way to handle them is to put your thumb inside the mouth, and grip the lower jaw firmly. That way you can unhook it and, chuck it back easily.
Giok

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Aug 03 - 11:02 AM

SRS –

I know that one of my associates in Washington state, who did a lot of fishing off the docks in Seattle and vicinity, called a rather strange saltwater critter a bullhead, and I'd agree it was so ugly, slimy, spiny, bony (add adjectives as desired – all bad ones work) that I couldn't imagine anyone attempting to eat one. He also asserted that they were venomous, but I didn't find any confirmation of that.

If you were fishing in a Washington state lake, however, the most likely "bullhead" you'd have caught would have been a brown bullhead, Ictalurus nebulosus, and quite edible. It's an "introduced" species (ca. 1880) not native to Washington, but would likely have been fairly common in your (our) times.

The Washington Department of Fisheries and Wildlife asserts:

"Bullheads also make excellent table fare; many anglers consider catfish taken from cool, clean water to be the ultimate in piscatorial cuisine. The fish are normally skinned, at which a little practice is required to become proficient. Any brown bullhead over 12 inches is a good-sized one, so expect to work for a family meal."

The only reason I can think of for not liking them is, if your father was raised on trout and salmon, he might have failed to skin them, or didn't do a complete job of getting all the skin off. Although the WDFW implies that they may be prepared with the skin on, the usual "slime level" and tough skin would require extreme cleaning (or marinating?) measures, in my opinion, to avoid the rather oily, and sometimes slightly bitter, taste of the skin.

It is possible that what you were catching was something else, and that "bullhead" was a local name for it; but if it wasn't good to eat (when taken from reasonably clean water) – it wasn't a catfish.

An interesting page on fish in Washington state, from which the above quote was taken, is at Warm Water Fish of Washington. The extremely sparse variety of native freshwater fish ("Before the late 1800s, the only resident freshwater fish living in Washington State were trout, char, whitefish, burbot, squawfish, suckers and smaller fish generally unimportant to anglers") has led to a lot of introductions of non-native fish, deliberately and illegally or accidentally. The page gives a good historical outline of what's there now.

OTHERS -

Several folk have made reference above to the "thousand pound catfish" legends. Catfish can be quite large, but most of these stories are "apocryphal" or "urban legend" stuff. There are numerous historical photos of some rather large ones, but specific identification is difficult. Current thinking is that most of the very large ones taken from the Mississippi and its tributaries were probably blues, or in a few cases flatheads, as they seem to have a greater "growth capacity" than channels. Few people, a hundred or so years ago (or even now), would have been able to tell the difference between a blue and a channel cat, especially a very large one.

One well known photo from my region, that shows a catfish reported at 850 pounds, hanging on the trading post scale, can be estimated to have actually been not more than (possibly) 300 pounds by comparison with more recent accurately document fish. In the era of the original picture, most trading posts had two sets of weights – one for buying stuff and one for selling. They often were in a ratio of 3 or 4 to 1, and neither set was likely to conform to any "official" standard. Also, in that era, the "average" man was unlikely to be more than about 5' 4" tall, and local publishers were not less prone to exaggerated headlines than current ones.

The current US record for any catfish caught by "sporting" methods is a flathead of 123 pounds. Somewhat larger ones have been "found" by sometimes bizarre (and/or illegal) methods, but many of these cases are poorly documented, and at least some may have been saltwater cats (entirely different critters) that "migrated" accidentally into the lower regions of the Mississippi.

Keep the faith that there are bigger ones out there – and some are big enough to eat ya'; but how big?...

John

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Aug 03 - 12:02 PM

John,

What we were catching weren't catfish, weren't 12" long, and aren't edible. I can't imagine working that hard to get that little amount of meat even if you do have one of those types of catfish you're discussing.

Dad fished all over the U.S., since his father was stationed in many Army hospitals as an Army psychiatrist. I'm sure Dad knew the difference between a catfish and a bullhead--as did his father who taught him to fish. Dad was born in Louisiana, but as the saying goes, probably got out of there as fast as he could. His father's family was from the New England area and there are stories of his fishing in the creek behind a favorite aunt's home in Pennsylvania.

Now if you want to start talking about boney, difficult fish for eating, take a look at the alligator gar. The small ones are probably more boney than tender. I lived in Louisianna for a few months and came across fishermen who kept the meat from the big ones for eating. Here is a cute story. If people are catching these and not planning to eat them, they should release them, because they are beneficial, in addition to being a living fossil of the fish world.

SRS

Subject: RE: Help: Are Mudcat and Bullhead Synonymous?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Aug 03 - 09:03 PM

SRS -

Personally, I find salmon far too bony (and oily) to be worth the effort. Common carp has the same bones, but tastes better. Of course, others do differ, probably because they don't know how to cook a carp.

We do have gar in local streams and ponds, and they are caught occasionally, usually by accident. Our F&G guys consider them "trash" fish, because they have a tendency to eat all those high priced "gamefish" that they spend so much time and money stocking into our waters; but I'll agree that they should be respected - if only for having survived almost as long as cockroaches.

It does rouse my curiosity as to what the "bullhead" was that you were catching, but apparently that's not to be divined now. In common usage, a bullhead is a catfish. Apparently yours were something else. I'll accept your testimony as to your fathers cooking (and fishing) skills - never meant to criticize, only to ask.

John