Myself and two of my kids hit LB this morning. We first went over to the springs and caught one white bass first thing. Nothing for the next hour. Next we motored over to Benjamin slough and nailed a half dozen catfish on night crawlers. Can someone tell me if these two bigger cats are muds or channels? I pretty sure the smaller one is a channel.
Also, as we left, there were about a dozen DNR officers checking boaters coming and going. And I mean checking EVERYTHING. They checked my fish, DL, fishing licence, my son's fishing licence, life jackets...you name it. I ended up getting a warning for not filling out a zebra mussel form. [blush]
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You should have been fined... This laissez faire attitude here is gonna spread the mussel. I give it 3 years.
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[cool][#0000ff]Top two fish are channels. #3 is a bullhead (mud cat). Any problem with #4? Hint...not a whipper or a stripper.[/#0000ff]
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[#500000]Channels have spots and a forked tail ..... All other cats are ugly, except to their moms.[/#500000]
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Huh, I guess I had them cats backwards. I thought the bullheads had red in their fins and tails. So is that bullhead eatable or should I bury it in the garden? [:/]
And yes, I know what #4 is....a white bass dinner!
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[cool][#0000ff]There's a lot more to distinguishing the difference between channel cats and bullheads than the color of fins. Size, body shape, tail shape, etc. It pays to spend some time with books or online info to learn more about them. Of course, there is nothing better than on-the-water research.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Contrary to common opinion, the bullheads are fine eating. They are smaller but if you get one big enough to fillet and skin you end up with a tasty little morsel. Or, you can just skin them (with pliers) and fry them up whole...minus the head and guts. I consider them to be among the better eating fish in Utah and whenever they are biting well I got no problem with keeping a few.[/#0000ff]
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Hey cardoc, when I was a youngster, fishin out of the back of grandpa's truck, we always kept mudders and threw back the channel cats. Grandpa said they weren't worth the time to gut. Of course, back in those days, we would catch thirty mudders to every channel. Things have changed.
Grandma sure loved it when we had the back of the truck half full of mud cats. We cleaned and skinned them. Never did fillet them. And she had special spices and flour she would coat the little fellers in. A quick trip to the fry pan and some darned yummy eating. But then again, Grandma could make a chunk of cedar bark taste good.
By the way, the parks guys have been out in full force at Utah Lake also. They checked me and did a boat inspection the other day. Everybody, make sure you have all your boat stuff in order. I got a warning because I forgot to put my new insurance card in the boat.
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This evening I fried up the bullhead (I'm not going to call them mud cats anymore now that I consumed one) and some of the channel meat and I couldn't taste a difference. Maybe just a slight difference in texture. The bigger chunks I'm going to smoke tomorrow.
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Yeah, don't even think about burying a bullhead in the garden. People call them "mudcats" because they don't want to bother thinking about them as a game fish.
They taste great, basically just like channels. I've eaten catfish of both species that did taste a bit muddy, but they came from warm, still, mossy waters in late summer....
My main problem with them is that they are so wide in the head they won't lie flat on their sides on a filet board......
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I forgot to mention they have the southern Dike blocked off to vehicles. In fact parts of both dikes are under water.
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Nice sounding trip! Better then spending the day helping out a brother in law move apartments for sure... But any fishing day is better then real work....
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