When growing up we fished for what bites.
We caught a catfish everyone called MUDCAT, I never see that mentioned but do not fish for catfish at all, what was a mud cat if anything different?

people call bullheads "mudcats" and "polliwogs."

A mud cat is not really the most desirable for the table. When growing up, we caught them on the Yegua, if in fresh moving water, not so bad of a cat to eat. But if caught in a tank or pond, the water is not moving so they get more of a mud taste to them. If you soak them in fresh water a few days, they will get the mud taste out of them. They are kinda like crawdads, you got to purge them before cooking them. Some parts of this country, people eat them like they are going out of style. Other places they use them for bait.

Over the years I've found a lot of people who do not fish for catfish "refer" to catfish caught in local lakes as "mud-cats." I had a guy the other day refer to a catfish we caught as a "mud-cat."

The truth is, most folks fishing for catfish in Texas reservoirs hardly ever catch "mud-cat" or "Polly-wogs".

The real term for these catfish are bull heads. And, there are 2 kinds....yellow and black.

http://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/bigfish/

Black Bullheads fight like a champ!

We catch them occasionally when channel catting with punch bait. A good friend of mine called them turd rustlers, we usually just called them mud cat or bull head.

I grew up poor we didn't cull anything bullheads,bowfin drum we ate it.As for cleaning we would pour scalding water on them and scrap the slime off them.

Caught a 16 inch yellow bullhead in WRC behind my apartment before knowing what a bullhead was, thought it was a flathead because of the color and square tail and threw it back not knowing it could have been a state record or at least close...yea

Eric