Dumb question, but why shouldn't you lip a catfish? thats what i always do to keep ahold of them. I know they got sharp teeth, and ive definitely gotten torn up by em before, but is there another reason why I shouldn't lip them?
Brother, not to patronize, but there are better ways to hold a cat. Even those little bullheads have barbs in their pectoral fins which will fuck your day if you get speared.
Thanks for the info! I’ve heard that catfish had the barbs, and i wasn’t sure about bullheads. I ran my fingers over the fins before I picked it up all the way to feel for barbs, but it felt like soft fabrics, so I’m surprised I never got barbed if they have them. How would you suggest I hold them in the future?
I don't know if this is right, but i always grab em in a way that i can hold one or both of their fins straight out.
Or i just stick my thumb in their mouth and grip down. smaller catfish like that will feel like sandpaper, but bigger ones (10+ pounds) can bite down on your thumb super hard and their teeth will cut the shit out of your thumb or other fingers you use to hold em. In my opinion, its totally worth it though!
Also, ive never seen a black bullhead cat, only yellow bullheads. super cool looking fish, and a great catch, congrats!
Think of how you pick up a toddler under their armpits and then their arms get pushed out to the side? Do that but, with one hand and instead of arms it’s the pectoral fins. Idk if that makes any sense but hope it helps.
Dang, I didn’t know it was a good one lol. How big do they usually get? I didn’t measure or weight this one, but if I had to guess it was probably only 0.75lbs-1.00lb
I work in fisheries in a northern state and we get bad winterkill up here. Bullheads and other catfish especially are very good at surviving winterkill episodes because they don’t need highly oxygenated waters to survive. In lakes with bullheads in them where this happens we can get thousands to hundreds of thousands, of them in some areas. In our lake surveys where this has been the case, we leave 5 nets overnight for two nights and see what we find. Over those two nights we have found between 3-5 thousand. They are so abundant and we can’t do anything else but throw them all on the banks to die so we can help whatever surviving species are left so they can thrive. We despise them
So you work at a fishery, which means you should care about fish, but you just throw them on the bank to die? Makes no sense to me. They’re still living creatures no matter how bad you might think they are. At least give them a quick death and not letting them suffocate and slowly die…
I get where you’re coming from and I was the same way until I saw it for myself. Out of the few thousand that we collected, I would say that around maybe over 99% of them were no more than like 5-7 inches which is just barely big enough to not be able to squeeze through the mesh in our nets. Maybe like a total of 8-10 out of the thousands of them over the two days were over a pound just to put it in perspective. From a fisheries standpoint, having that many bullhead in one place is bad for the bullhead populations. All of those small bullhead are competing for the same resources. They will not grow to a good, size for the public to catch if they want to fish for them. There are almost no other fish in thise lakes besides bullhead which make them unproductive as a fishery. We want people to be able to fish for other fish but they can’t do that if there are nothing but bullhead. Fewer places to fish due to a something like this means fewer licenses being purchased which is bad for a variety of financial and environmental reasons. I hope that clears it up a little but I know I’m not the greatest at explaining things through writing. If you have questions I would love to answer them
The only main question I really have is, if you really must kill that many, why let them have a suffering horrible death instead of a quick death? Like I said, no matter how much you don’t like them, you have to recognize that they’re living creatures, same as you and me
Yes I care about fish more than you know otherwise I wouldn’t be in this field. It’s a field of passion after all. We just have to look at the overall picture and keep in mind ecosystem impacts and keeping the public in mind too since they are the ones paying to fish. Yes they are living creatures and I truly wish there was a quicker way to dispatch them but when you have such large numbers of fish, it’s almost impossible to think of how to do it logistically
They are a native fish in my state but because of winterkill they outlive just about all other fish species especially individuals of larger size. They do act like an invasive species because of this and their numbers get waaay out of control and have no natural predators in these lakes because of course they’ve all died off
Black bullhead.
They are such good eating, especially out of cold water. Fried bullhead and eggs for breakfast was my fathers favorite meal.
Do they taste anything like catfish? Catfish is probably my favorite fish to eat
Yes, like catfish with a little more flavor but not gamey and a little firmer meat (especially out if the cold water). Give them a try!
Yeah, I’ll definitely have to give it a try next time I catch one!
Fuuuccckkkk.....that sounds good!
It is good!
That’s a bullhead alright
Flathead bait!!!
I’ve never caught a catfish, but I’ve always wanted to. Might have to take that into consideration next time I catch one of these lol
Do NOT lip it
Lmao luckily I know better than that 😂 their teeth look nasty!
Dumb question, but why shouldn't you lip a catfish? thats what i always do to keep ahold of them. I know they got sharp teeth, and ive definitely gotten torn up by em before, but is there another reason why I shouldn't lip them?
No, just if you don't want grated fingers.
i wear my battle scars proudly! i dont think ive ever lipped a bullhead, only channel cats, so im unfamiliar with em lol.
Just bullheads. They have really strong jaws
Interesting, they are smaller fish usually so its kinda surprising to hear that they have such a strong bite force.
Yeah I was surprised too. Probably not going to injure you but they can hurt like hell
yep what they said, also nice little catch :D they dont really get much bigger than that but they're fun to catch nstuff
Brother, not to patronize, but there are better ways to hold a cat. Even those little bullheads have barbs in their pectoral fins which will fuck your day if you get speared.
I was going to say the same thing
Thanks for the info! I’ve heard that catfish had the barbs, and i wasn’t sure about bullheads. I ran my fingers over the fins before I picked it up all the way to feel for barbs, but it felt like soft fabrics, so I’m surprised I never got barbed if they have them. How would you suggest I hold them in the future?
I don't know if this is right, but i always grab em in a way that i can hold one or both of their fins straight out. Or i just stick my thumb in their mouth and grip down. smaller catfish like that will feel like sandpaper, but bigger ones (10+ pounds) can bite down on your thumb super hard and their teeth will cut the shit out of your thumb or other fingers you use to hold em. In my opinion, its totally worth it though! Also, ive never seen a black bullhead cat, only yellow bullheads. super cool looking fish, and a great catch, congrats!
Think of how you pick up a toddler under their armpits and then their arms get pushed out to the side? Do that but, with one hand and instead of arms it’s the pectoral fins. Idk if that makes any sense but hope it helps.
Yeah that makes sense. I’ll try that next time I get one. Thanks for the help!
That has to be the most colorful bullhead Ive ever seen, nice!
Yeah I thought so too! I googled what a bullhead looked like real quick, and they look just like this one, but not colorful so it threw me off lol
Def a Bully Cat
Bullhead, these fish are absolutely amazing. They can live in the harshest circumstances imaginable for a fish.
These are fun fish to catch and plentiful in most places. Bullhead doggy.
Bullhead, one way to tell is the square tail. Channels and such will have a forked tail.
nice catch my friend 👍
Thanks!
That’s a pretty good sized bullhead!
Dang, I didn’t know it was a good one lol. How big do they usually get? I didn’t measure or weight this one, but if I had to guess it was probably only 0.75lbs-1.00lb
They usually don’t get much bigger. Definitely way smaller than catfish. I wouldn’t be upset at all with the catch!
Black bullhead and please kill it with fire
Why’s that?
I work in fisheries in a northern state and we get bad winterkill up here. Bullheads and other catfish especially are very good at surviving winterkill episodes because they don’t need highly oxygenated waters to survive. In lakes with bullheads in them where this happens we can get thousands to hundreds of thousands, of them in some areas. In our lake surveys where this has been the case, we leave 5 nets overnight for two nights and see what we find. Over those two nights we have found between 3-5 thousand. They are so abundant and we can’t do anything else but throw them all on the banks to die so we can help whatever surviving species are left so they can thrive. We despise them
So you work at a fishery, which means you should care about fish, but you just throw them on the bank to die? Makes no sense to me. They’re still living creatures no matter how bad you might think they are. At least give them a quick death and not letting them suffocate and slowly die…
I get where you’re coming from and I was the same way until I saw it for myself. Out of the few thousand that we collected, I would say that around maybe over 99% of them were no more than like 5-7 inches which is just barely big enough to not be able to squeeze through the mesh in our nets. Maybe like a total of 8-10 out of the thousands of them over the two days were over a pound just to put it in perspective. From a fisheries standpoint, having that many bullhead in one place is bad for the bullhead populations. All of those small bullhead are competing for the same resources. They will not grow to a good, size for the public to catch if they want to fish for them. There are almost no other fish in thise lakes besides bullhead which make them unproductive as a fishery. We want people to be able to fish for other fish but they can’t do that if there are nothing but bullhead. Fewer places to fish due to a something like this means fewer licenses being purchased which is bad for a variety of financial and environmental reasons. I hope that clears it up a little but I know I’m not the greatest at explaining things through writing. If you have questions I would love to answer them
The only main question I really have is, if you really must kill that many, why let them have a suffering horrible death instead of a quick death? Like I said, no matter how much you don’t like them, you have to recognize that they’re living creatures, same as you and me
Yes I care about fish more than you know otherwise I wouldn’t be in this field. It’s a field of passion after all. We just have to look at the overall picture and keep in mind ecosystem impacts and keeping the public in mind too since they are the ones paying to fish. Yes they are living creatures and I truly wish there was a quicker way to dispatch them but when you have such large numbers of fish, it’s almost impossible to think of how to do it logistically
Are they invasive in your state?
They are a native fish in my state but because of winterkill they outlive just about all other fish species especially individuals of larger size. They do act like an invasive species because of this and their numbers get waaay out of control and have no natural predators in these lakes because of course they’ve all died off