Creating a Lake

[Bird]

I agree with have blue; the solution to the problem (if you consider it a problem) is to eat those bullheads - or any other catfish I catch from clean fresh water.

Along the coast, there's a salt water catfish called "hardheads". Now they're quite normal looking catfish, but everyone considers them to be trash and not fit to eat. Many years ago, curiosity got the best of me (as usual) so I dressed out 3 of them and Margaret fried them. One bite and I threw it all in the trash.

Otherwise, I've only once in my life found a catfish I didn't like to eat. When we spent the school year of 1971-72 in Des Plaines, IL, the local supermarket had a very nice selection of fresh fish except . . . no catfish. And then one day I went in there and they had 3 whole catfish, skinned, gutted, and the heads removed, of course, then they had a whole pile of catfish fillets. I took the 3 whole ones plus a pound of two of the fillets. When Margaret fried them, the whole ones were good; the fillets were so bad we threw them all away and I have no idea just what kind of catfish they were.

I don't know how many of you eat fish eggs, but I found many years ago that I really don't care for caviar. However, when cleaning fish such as crappie and flounder, if they have eggs in them and you can take them out without breaking the egg sack and fry them along with the fish, they're quite tasty (if you break the egg sack, they tend to pop and splatter grease when you fry them). So about 30 years ago, I caught a bullhead fishing at Toledo Bend and it was full of eggs. Of course, I filleted the fish and we ate the fillets, but we also fried that sack of eggs. The flavor would have been OK, but those eggs were like chewing rubber; just couldn't chew them up. But our German Shepherd sure enjoyed them.

 

[patrick_g]

Bird, My parents always ate the egg sacks of fresh water fish they caught. We also ate the fins of the smaller fish, not catfish though. They were almost like potato chips.

One of the best tasting fish I ever had (I'm not all that into fish, mind you and I like fish that doesn't taste fishy) was an ocean fish, cabazon which a commercial fisherman told me it is a relative of the ling cod and a bottom dweller/rockfish.

It is a weird looking big mouthed critter with eye brows that look like kelp fronds and has skin like a catfish instead of scales. Its tongue is greenish blue, its flesh is blue but cooks up snow white. Now for the OOPS.

Its eggs are poisonous. I know of no fresh water species with any poisonous parts that you can eat by mistake.

If you want to get into rural myths or maybe close held information... some folks say that some of the catfish have poisonous barbels (whisker like organs, especially on catfish.) Like non-poisonous snake bites are still serious as they don't brush their teeth and can give you a nasty infection, I doubt catfish barbels are all that sanitary but I don't know about the poison beliefs.

Pat

 

[Farwell]

Pat,
You are the only person that I know of that has mentioned eating the fins of small fish and them being like potato chips. I have told many people about how my Mother fried pan fish in corn meal and we ate the fins and tail but none of them had ever heard of the practice.

 

[Bird]

Pat (and Farwell), of course we ate the fins and tails of smaller fish. I was grown before I ever heard of "filleting" fish. We "scaled" the fish, gutted them, and cut off the heads. The only ones we skinned were aligator gar and that's more like a shell than skin and scales. With catfish, they were held with pliers; one jaw in the mouth, the other jaw on top of the head. They were killed with a knife point into the brain, then dipped into hot water and wiped thoroughly with a towel before being gutted and having the head cut off. The only fish that weren't fried whole were the ones that were too big and then they were simply split; no bones removed. And Pat, I guess you could say that I am into fish. I like just about all kinds of fresh water and salt water seafoods, and it would suit me just fine to have fish 3 or 4 days a week. I don't recall ever hearing the name "cabazon", but when my parents lived in Alaska, they liked the ling cod and also told of catching some kind of cod with green meat that cooked up white. Mother said the first time she saw any of it, she wasn't sure it would be fit to eat. I was fortunate enough to catch a few ling cod the last time I was in Alaska, but none of the green cod. And we sure did catch a lot of black, red, and china rockfish, which were also excellent eating.

 

[have_blue]

Never heard the theory about birds intentionally seeding ponds. But I can tell you what I've seen with my own eyes.

I was walking toward a a green heron, and surprised him while he was cleaning his beak on a stick. He flew away, and I was curious to see what I might find on the stick. It was live baby gambusia (mosquito fish), still wiggling on the stick. I assumed the bird caught a pregnant gambusia, and popped her belly while eating her. The heron could easily have cleaned his beak at a nearby pond, and transferred the fish.

On many occasions I have seen birds attacking other birds, trying to steal their food or just drive them out of their territory. When a bird is attacked, it will drop whatever it's carrying so it can escape faster. I have seen birds drop an acorn, a pecan, a fish, and a frog. The fish and frog were dead, but could just as well have been alive.

I pushed a 1' tree over with a dozer last spring. The dirt was soft, and it left a 7-8' wide stump hole about 18" deep. I was bush hoging 3-4 months later, and saw water in that hole and noticed movement. I hopped off the tractor for a closer look, and the stump hole had 2 dozen gambusia minnows swimming happily in it. The stump hole is 400-500' from the nearest ditch, and no high water can get to it.

Those are just 3 examples of how nature finds a way to spread her creatures. I'm sure there are many more ways.

 

[EddieWalker]

From what I've read and the replies you guys gave me, I don't really think the bullheads are all that bad. They seem to get there reputation from trout ponds more then down south. It might be the bass and other large predator fish that we have in our ponds, I'm not sure. I realise it's something I can't undo, so I'm gonna consider it a positive. They will breed like crazy and provide tons of protein for my bass and channel cats!!! Once my bass get up to size, they will have all the food they could possibly eat!!!

Steph cought 11 more nice sized channel cats in our small pond yesterday. Then she took them down to Lake Marabou and let them go. She bought plastic storage box with a lid that locks down to keep the fish and water in there while driving the ATV down to the lake. It's small enough that she can pic it up by herself and let them go at the waters edge. The fish are so big, that she will take them down there when she has two, but sometimes she'll worry about one if it's been in there for awhile and take it down there before it dies. We have a little minnow pump that oxyginates the water, so that should help them out too.

These pics were taken yesterday.

Eddie

 

[patrick_g]

There are verified reports of tornadoes picking up water with fish and dumping them elsewhere.

There are reports of the sky raining frogs and fish (separate events) and it was suspected that tornadoes were the cause although at the time there was no surveillance to detect the storm that could have initially picked them up.

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | How can it rain fish?

The above is one of many Google hits.

# In 1873, Scientific American reported that Kansas City, Missouri was blanketed with frogs that dropped from the sky during a storm.
# Minneapolis, Minnesota was pelted with frogs and toads in July, 1901. A news item stated: "When the storm was at its highest... there appeared as if descending directly from the sky a huge green mass. Then followed a peculiar patter, unlike that of rain or hail. When the storm abated the people found, three inches deep and covering an area of more than four blocks, a collection of a most striking variety of frogs... so thick in some places that...

The above is from: Weird, Weird Rain

While picking blackberries with a cousin this year I noticed a cow's hoof print filled with water had something in it splashing. She suggested it might be a tadpole which I agreed was a good guess. I stuck my finger in and wiggled iit and out splashed a 1 inch long fish. Then we noticed a hundred or so dead fish in the 3/4 to 1 1/2 inch range scattered in the grass. I then noticed dead grass and other "floatable" debris on the lowest strand of a nearby barbed wire fence. An overflow event had washed some fry from a nearby pond.

As far as eating the fins and tails... if the fish is small enough the fins and tails fry up really crisp and are quite potato chip like. If your parents cook and eat fish this way then you don't have a clue it might be considered strange by others as it is just "THE WAY" you are used to seeing it done.

When we lived in NW Ohio we used to get a small fish called smelt. These were pretty much fried whole and eaten fins, skeleton and all.

Bird, Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-seafood and have caught or collected and eaten a variety of critters including (but not limited to) sea cucumbers, abalone, muscles, scallops, lobster, crawdads, turtle, snake, squid, octopus, and fish that I don't know what they were except dumb enough to let me swim up to them with a spear gun.

I don't like fish that taste too fishy and I'm not so into fish that I eat the left over pan fish cold for breakfast the next day (like my grandmother loved to do.) I did not select fish from the breakfast buffet while in London.

I have even eaten anchovies, sardines, kippered herring and such but not in years.

As a young child I did not like the texture of cornmeal on my fried fish and so my mom would flour mine. I like it fine now though. That preference created quite a stir among the pre MLK domestic help at a family fish fry in Mississippi where we seined a pond and had the fish deep fried in three legged cast iron pots over wood fires. Apparently the food quirks of "THAT NORTHERN BOY" were quite a gossip topic that night. Rest assured a couple floured fish in with 20-30 dredged in corn meal come out with significant meal adhered. I survived the incident.

Pat

 

[3RRL]

Pat,
Tornadoes are not the only thing that displace water animals.
About 20 years ago (perhaps when you were still in California?) there was a huge fire here in the Inland Empire. I don't recall all the details, but apparently they scooped up water from the Ocean and lakes with aircraft and dumped it on the fire. There was a diver, still in his wetsuit and SCUBA tanks found in the hills burnt to a crisp. You may have heard about it back then? Can you imagine THAT happening to you?

 

[Spiveyman]

Similar story to validate the bird theorists... I was fishing in my papaw's pond, saw some kind of king fisher?? (I'm not a bird guy, so I have no idea what it actually was), he caught a little blue gill then flew over to the edge of the water trough (this pond feeds a trough for cattle). He was messing around with the fish and lost it right into the trough. He flew off so I went over there and sure enough there was a little blue gill swimming around in the cattle trough. That could just as easily have been the next pond over where he dropped it.

I also grew up scaling fish (before it was cool to filet), we'd fry them up and my papaw would always ask for everyone's tails and fins. He loved them. He gets mad now because my dad and uncle always filet the fish and he doesn't get those "fin chips." We also save the egg sacks from the bass and fry them up.

Good luck with the cats, when the bass start tearing them up you are going to have a great time catching some trophy bass!

 

[patrick_g]

but apparently they scooped up water from the Ocean and lakes with aircraft and dumped it on the fire. There was a diver, still in his wetsuit and SCUBA tanks found in the hills burnt to a crisp.

3RRL, Urban Legends Reference Pages is an excellent place to "test" these stories prior to repeating them. This story was even the subject of a "Myth Busters" episode.

Sorry, sounds neat, just didn't happen.

Pat