Catfish? Bullhead? I'm confused.

[LucasMN]

Hello all. I have been reading on here about people catching catfish and have wondered what a catfish is? This picture is from the summer, but we've caught a few ice fishing also, we just call them bullheads and the majority of the time throw them back. This is from Big Sauk Lake, and I was wondering what this is? Also, would you say it would be ok to eat? We scun out a few and gave them to my neighbor, he ate them and said they were fine.

[Skeets]

I don't know if I would eat anything out of that water...

[Hamre]

Bullhead

[Sandmannd]

Looks like a bully to me. They should be fine to eat.

[erickol]

Thats either a brown or black bullhead. from the right water they taste great!

MN has this for that "family" of fish, (at least the main players)

brown bullhead

black bullhead

yellow bullhead

Channel catfish

flathead catfish

[WalleyeChaser]

That is definitly a bullhead. They are great smoked also just gut them out leave the head and tail on and hang 'um. Never eaten on fried before though.

[Sandmannd]

I've taken the sking off, the head off and gut them. Fried them up and they taste just fine. You can make them any way you would make a kitty catfish and they will taste good.

[DTro]

I've taken the sking off, the head off and gut them. Fried them up and they taste just fine.

I would've thrown a 10/0 hook in it's back

[Stradic]

Got that right!

[erickol]

Ditto dtro,

I have only used them for flathead bait, but know a guy who uses them for muskie too.

Have you ever tried baiting a smaller one on a tip up?

[BuckKiller]

yup bullhead for sure. I think they are very tasty. third favorite fish to eat, after sunnies and crappies

[Rick G]

What would you catch with one that big? Got eyes with willow cats and catch catfish with small bullheads but never tried with one anywhere near that big.

[erickol]

you can only fish with a 7" bullhead (and smaller) legally anyway.

[RylFlsh85]

Bullhead alright, and they are great eating, water quality is a big factor however.

[pdk511]

nasty lookin watever it is lol

[Fever]

(Ameiurus natalis).... that is a YELLOW bullhead. They are ok to eat and some people absolutly love them. I personally concider them a rough fish and nothing but a pest. By the way, Yellow bullheads are named for their yellow bellys and are the most common of the bullhead species in our state. Black bullheads have black or gray barbels, yellow bullhead has white, while brown bullheads have a noticiably brown splochy colored body and are less common in min than the two other sub species. Body color varies, and not a reliable indicator of species due to water quality differences.

[FishinChad]

Bullhead, you can tell the difference between catfish and bullhead by the tail, catcish have v shaped tails while the bullhead has a flat ended tail like in the picture above. Catfish get much much bigger than bullheads, but sometimes small cats and big bullheads can confuse some.

[erickol]

Fever, I hate to stir up anything, but I respectfully disagree with your ID of a yellow bullhead. Yellow bullheads are the only bullhead of the three that have pale chin whiskers. Both the brown and black bullheads have dark whiskers and are somewhat difficult to tell apart. The pectoral spines on the brow and black are serrated kinda differently in absence of other ID traits (not as heavily serrated in browns).

I'd say it was a black bullhead if I had to pick one, the browns also have a bit more variation in the chin whiskers. The black is considered the most common in MN waters because it can live in more waters than either the yellow or brown.

[Fever]

Erickol, you may be right. I see that the barbs / chin wiskers look to be quite dark and on a yellow they should be lighter in color which does indicate that it is a black.