Holy Horned Pout

On Tuesday I went up to the Charles River to do some catfishing. According to Mass Wildlife, the Charles is supposed to support channel catfish. They are a rare catch, but the river does have a healthy population of white catfish.

To my dismay, I did not catch either species. I did land quite a few catfish of the bullhead variety. After a slow start, the bullheads proved almost nonstop action. I ended up catching at least a dozen. Most of the bullheads were yellow, but as the night went along, I started catching brown bullheads (the ones New Englanders refer to as horned pout). I caught what I think is my largest yellow bullhead ever. They do not grow very large, the biggest I caught was about a foot long.

As a contrast I caught one of my smallest brown bullheads ever at about four inches. I very seriously considered taking it home and putting it in my fish tank.  Strangely I also caught a sunfish and a yellow perch an hour after complete darkness. I fished until about 9:30 pm and drove the half hour home.

Fish caught on nightcrawlers on the bottom casting into a channel near a bridge.