Eating Bullheads

[fishinggeek]

I love catfish in the restaurant, blackened or fried. I catch the odd bullhead. Edible or not? I hear yes, but I have also heard very muddy (compared to the farm-raised variety) and full of worms. I'd appreciate any info from this great board!

[Disspatcher]

One trick I learned from an old time fisherman,...he did this to his smallies but works for all fish.

Once the fish is cleaned, put the beauti white fillets in a large bowl filled with cold water and 2-3 tblspns of salt.

Swish the fillets around for 2-3 minutes and watch the water turn brown~! Rinse fillets under cold water tap and your done.

 

Pulls all of the dirt out of the already cleaned white fillets...try it you would be surprised!!!

Edited March 28, 2008 by Disspatcher

[packrat]

Havent had them for awhile but find them better then channel catfish----"sweeter".

 

 

If you get them out of clear water no problem with muddy taste---there are ways to remove most of the muddy taste tho.

[John]

From the right waters they are awesome. Used to go to a restaurant in NY state where for $6.99 you could eat 'em by the bucketful.

[DANIMAL]

I first tried one baked in the oven, and it was really soft and oily, wasnt to big on it. Then I tried cooking one on the BBQ on a low heat for a long time. The meat was a lot firmer and not so oily, it actually tasted really good.

 

note: Both were taken from cold water.

[Headhunter]

Soaking anything that is "gamey" or over powering in milk for a few hours, will remove that taste. Many people do it when cooking organs such as liver or kidney and it also works very well for fishies!

Not at all suggesting that Catfish require this treatment, but thought I'd pass this along.

HH

[irishfield]

Soaking anything that is "gamey" or over powering in milk for a few hours, will remove that taste. HH

 

Is that why lactating breasts taste so good ....

[nautifish]

I keep catfish in the spring when the water is still nice and cold and clear. Had a good feed last spring. I don't eat the channel cats though. I don't keep them through the summer months when the water has warmed up.

I have baked,smoked, and fried and for me fried catfish is my favorite.

 

This is some i cleaned up and cooked last spring.

 

 

[Headhunter]

"Is that why lactating breasts taste so good ...."

 

As you know Wayne... that one really hurts right now!LOL

HH

[irishfield]

[fishinggeek]

Great info everyone! Keep it coming. Do they have bones? Is there special ways of cleaning them? I have googled some answers, all of which sound weird: nail them to a tree and use pliers, clean them like any other fish, rip the head and entrails off, etc. Thought I'd ask someone from our great OFC community...

[Casey123]

Nail there head to a board, pull the skin off with pliers. It is sooooooooo easy.

[Terry]

Is that why lactating breasts taste so good ....

 

 

that's just wrong

 

 

 

 

 

 

to talk about

[Ramble]

I helped a friend a few years back clean a couple buckets full of them ....lets just say i lost interest in keeping cats after that lol.

 

We used pliers, you score the skin around the head cut the barbed fins off close to the body and then use the pliers to pull the skin off...kinda like a sock. trim off head, tail and remove the guts. He cooks them on teh BBQ as well. Driving a nail through their head in to a board can make the job a little easier.

 

i'm not big fan of eating cats. They are better in the spring, then later in the year. And yes they do have bones, like any other fish, but the meat falls off them once they are cooked really easily and i don't rememeber encountering any bones when i was eating them.

 

I have a friend who prefers channels to bullheads....but i think that is because he doesnt like cleaning cats, and would rather do 1 then 6.

 

I find a sinker and a floating head jig with a gob of worm about 2 inches off bottom is more effective then just letting it rest on the bottom for bullheads. If you can get them just after they spawn you can catch really high numbers in a short amount of time. Rivers running into bodies of water where you know they exist is a good start, target eddies. I know some guys use boats earlier int eh spawn to try and find them schools off river mouths...they stage like trout and move up rivers in mass at night to spawn.

 

hope that's some help.

 

-R-

[duber]

MMMMMMMMM bullheads (mudcats to me)!!

 

Nautifish your making me hungry with a pic like that.I prefer to just coat and fry them just like that.A feed of mudcats is the first sign that fishing season is here.They are a fine eating fish.I posted a thread last spring or the spring before with pictures and a step buy step process on the easy quick way to clean them.I tried to find it but I can never get the search engine to do what I want.

 

As for worms,they were parisite free every were up intill a few years ago.Now in the Bay of Quinte 7 out of 10 have these small little worm like parisites just under the skin.They are completely harmless to us.As a matter of fact if you have ate bullheads in a resteraunt then you have allready ate them.My niebourgh is a commercal fisherman and he ships 2 tonne of bullheads past my door on there way to the US every 2 days.Personally after seeing the parisites I can't eat them.You can't see the parisites till after you clean them so i'm not going to kill 10 fish just to get 3 to eat.What I do is catch and release them for fun , then I go to the commercail fisherman and order a dozen worm free bullheads.

 

That all said the best eating mudcats come from the more northern cooler lakes.They are smaller,worm free,and oh so tasty.

 

Buy the way the parisites showed up around the same time that the over population of comerants started and are believed to be carried buy them.

[xrap]

I've heard a method of letting the fillets soak in milk for a couple minutes to get that muddy taste out. Never have tried it tho and I never have tried bullhead. One the other hand chanel catfish are pretty tastey.

[John]

Is that why lactating breasts taste so good ....

 

Must be a distant mammary then is it Wayne??

[aplumma]

Man Catfish done right is one of the best eatting fish we can catch down here in the warm water belt. We dont have many walleye/ the p word down here so we eat alot of catfish and then the saltwater fish we catch. You can skin them if you want but it tends to stretch the meat fibers breaking them and making them soft. You can filet them just as you would a walleye just cut from the front to the back and leave the skin by the tail connected then flip the filet on the board skin side down and run your knife along the side just between the skin and the flesh. You also can seperate the tail from the fish and hold it by the skin with your fingernails trapping it to the cutting board and go from their. While the bullheads we catch here go back into the water the up to 5 # chanels are perfect for the table deep fried with hush puppies and assorted fried vegetables.

 

 

Art

[mikethespike]

not really a big fan since it reminds me of the walking catfish that we have back home. the slimy taste is hard to remove since it comes from the algae that the fish comsumes, and it is specific to the water's locale. one friend who runs a restaurant puts them in fishtanks for a couple of days with clean fresh-water to filter out the slime/muddy taste.

Edited March 29, 2008 by bravo_3

[Garry2Rs]

To clean a Catfish I lay the fish on it's side and cut the skin down to the backbone from behind the head to the tail. You have to cut on both sides of the dorsal spike. Then cut through the skin behind the head to the top of the ribcage, Cut above and around the ribcage. This line curves down to the belly, behind the ribs. Now cut the skin along the bottom of the fish from the back of the ribs to the tail. You have outlined the fillet you are going to remove.

Using the point of the fillet knife, cut through the meat down to the backbone from the head to the top of the ribs, follow the skin cuts you made before, cutting the flesh off the backbone from behind the ribs to the tail.

You can now remove the boneless fillet. Having scored the skin, you could have pulled the skin off first, using pliers etc, but I prefer to remove the skin by laying the fillet skin side down and running the blade between the skin and the meat. I do it this way to avoid stretching and tearing the flesh as was mentioned in an earlier post.

Using this method you leave the belly flesh behind, and never open the gut-sack.

There is no mess, and I believe that most contaminants are in the thin belly flesh.

You asked about bones, Catfish have no "Y" bones etc. so using my method what you have no ribs to remove, just a solid piece of meat that cooks up white and flaky.

This sounds more complicated than it is, and you can just remove the fillet without cutting through the skin first. But doing it this way the first time will make it simple, because when you start to remove the meat you are just connecting the cuts in the skin.

I prefer to keep smaller fish for the table, this method is great for smaller fish.

[Rich]

Definitely awesome fish to eat. Can't wait to get me some cold water bullheads for the frying pan.