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Love's True Test
In the early Spring after the first warm rain, the Lake Ontario bullheads come into the creeks to spawn. They are the best eating when they feed in colder
water and above the sand. They vary from River bullheads that often have a muddy taste. The best time to fish is between 8 and 11 p.m. When fishing from
shore, I normally use two poles, each on a forked stick pushed into the ground. Each pole has two hooks, each hook with a juicy
night-walker (large worm).
During the period my wife and I started dating, the bull head fishing was at its peak. In approximately half-hour stints the fish would bite so frequently that you could not keep both poles baited and in the water. (I
enhanced my production by pre-baiting detachable hook sets, but still could not keep the poles baited and in the water for those busy
times.) I
often caught (40) one to two pound fish in an evening. On a few occasions I would go home, switch gear and go to another creek from about 1 to 3 a.m.
and blind dip for smelt with a net. Fresh smelt were my favorite.
Not long after I met my present wife, I took her with me to fish for bullhead. It was rainy and cool. For a half-hour we would cuddle together under some
dock boards. The next half-hour was devoted to keeping up with the fish. Then cuddle again, then fish, then cuddle, then fish . . . We had a great time.
The next morning I was cleaning fish. She came out and asked if I would like fresh fish for lunch. I told her yes and gave her a couple. (For those not
familiar, a bullhead is like a small catfish. They have skin, not scales. To clean, you remove the skin, the head, and all but the meat and bone.
The bone remaining is basically one flexible skeleton. When you cook the
bullhead, you do so with that skeleton in and just pull it away with one movement
before eating.)
My wife is from Long Island and was unfamiliar with cooking fresh water fish. She asked me how I liked bullheads prepared. I explained that my sister used
pancake flour and then pan-fried them. Her way was my favorite.
A while later my wife announced that lunch was ready. I went to the table expecting the tender white meat encased in a crisp coating of oil-fried pancake
flour and egg.... What I saw was a large pancake with the form of a bullhead in the middle. (She could not get the flour to stick to the fish so she made a
batter, which also didn't stick. The pancake cooked, the fish did not. I still ate it.)
It’s 34 years later and my wife still tells everyone that after she saw me eat that fish she knew my love was real. (Since that day she has cooked and I
have eaten many fish, but to my knowledge not one other bullhead.)
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