Part II.] Pond Fish. 81 



in catching the larger fish with minnows or pieces of fish 

 that had been cut from some vegetable-eating variety of 

 scale fish. A five- or six-inch chub cut in from two to four 

 pieces always makes a good bait. Small frogs, beef or hog 

 liver, and bird meat have all been used with success. A 

 mouse on a hook makes one of the very best of baits for the 

 larger Channel cats. Crayfish is another good bait. From 

 the stomachs of the Blue Channel catfish we have taken such 

 things as snakes (sometimes longer than the fish themselves), 

 common rats, young half-grown muskrats, birds, young turtles, 

 various kinds of fish and insects and such vegetable matter 

 as wheat, corn (stomach full of it), and various kinds of 

 aquatic plants, and both land and aquatic insects. 



THE COMMON BULLHEAD, OR HORN POUT. 



Kinds and Habitat. 



Some of the most common and yet most valuable general- 

 purpose fishes in the state of Kansas belong to the group 

 commonly known as bullheads or horn pouts. The three 

 varieties more or less common in the waters of Kansas are the 

 Black, the Brown and the Yellow bullheads. They look so 

 much alike in their general appearance and make-up, there 

 being no very apparent characteristics that will especially 

 distinguish any one of them, that they are all usually dubbed 

 with the common appellation "bullhead." Even experienced 

 fishermen do not distinguish them other than sometimes to 

 call some of them Black and others Yellow bullheads. There 

 are also two or three varieties of Stone cats that are some- 

 what smaller in size than the bullheads, but closely allied to 

 them in general appearance and make-up. These, though be- 

 longing to a diff'erent genus or group are usually called bull- 

 heads. The various species of bullheads found in Kansas are 

 small, growing from twelve to eighteen inches in length and 

 weighing from eight ounces to thirty-two ounces each when 

 well grown. The sizes most commonly taken with hook and 

 line range in weight from one-quarter to one and one-quarter 

 pounds each. For a general-purpose fish that can feed upon 

 almost any kind of food and adapt itself to all kinds of streams 

 and all kinds of ponds with their various water conditions, it 

 would be difficult to find one that could adjust itself to so 

 many conditions of environment as the horn pout or bullhead. 



As a rule these fish prefer the more quiet bodies of water, 

 such as the slow-flowing creeks and small rivers, and are 

 frequently found in abundance and apparently doing well in 

 ponds and in the rather shallow, warm and muddy overflow 

 bodies of water where other varieties of native fish could 

 scarcely live. So long as there is any water in the stream 

 or pond that would make it possible for any fish to live, 

 specimens of bullheads can be found "alive and kicking." 



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