Ol' bullhead, ol' bullhead
You are so maligned.
But when the walleyes aren't biting
You are just divine.

That is only the first verse of Waterville's "Bullhead Song."
There are more. "More verses than you'd wanna hear," Del Pope said
Tuesday.

Good ol' fishin' music. And they will be singin' the whole tune
(sounds like "On Top of Old Smokey") this weekend in Waterville, a
southern Minnesota town where the bullhead is somebody.

It's Bullhead Days, you know.

Lots of bullhead fishing - up and down the Cannon River chain
of hot spots - and other exciting stuff.

"They're hitting good right now at Morristown Dam and Schmidtke
Dam," said Pope, a local bullhead prognosticator. "Oh, hell,
they're hitting all over. Elysian's good. Lower Sakatah, Sakatah
itself, and Tetonka."

Pope named another seven bullhead holes.

"They're all good for bullheads. You don't even have to rent a
boat. You can fish from shore."

True enough. Bullheads aren't fussy like trout or carp.
Store-bought fishing tackle is optional. When in doubt, try worm
gobs anchored with tractor lug nuts.

Plunk it on the bottom, wait a minute and reel in. If there's
another gob on the end of your line, you've caught a bullhead.
Don't expect an exhausting battle. If your rod is bent with a
bullhead on, it's probably broken.

Clearly, the bullhead wasn't stocked by the Original Fish
Manager to become a sportfish. A good bullhead serves another
purpose.

"Hey, we've got over 1 1/2 tons of clean bullheads ready to
go," Pope said.

Go where? In the frying pan, dudes. For something like $2,
the Waterville Sportsman's Club will fry up a mess of bullhead
fillets on a plate with all the trimmings. Call it a Bullhead Days
Special. Only the bashful or the stupid balk over the meal deal.

"They're still using the famous bullhead recipe created by Glen
(Baker) Preuss," Pope said. "He's dead now, but he was the best
cook this town ever knew."

Soak the fillets in salt water for a couple of hours. Pat dry
and roll in flour. Dip in an egg/milk batter and roll in Saltine
cracker crumbs. Fry at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

"If it's a big bullhead, over one-third of a pound, it should
be split," Pope said.

The big Bullhead Parade is set for 1 p.m. Sunday. "Did
Waterville invite Michael Erlandson to be grand marshall?" Pope was
asked.

There is no other candidate.

Michael Erlandson ought to get a key to the town. A statue,
maybe.

He's the bullhead king, Erlandson is. Nobody catches 'em
bigger. On a June day in 1990, the Bloomkest, Minn., angler beached
the largest black bullhead in Minnesota history.

The DNR recently listed Erlandson as the new state
record-holder.

It weighed 2 pounds, 9.6 ounces. In the fraternity of
bullheaders, that's humongous. The trophy was 15 3/8 inches long
with a pot-belly girth of 16.7 inches.

What a specimen! And swimming right in Erlandson's hometown
waters, Lake Minnewaska, by Glenwood, Minn.

"Actually, I was fishing for bass with a bobber and a leech,"
Erlandson, 23, confided. But he was pleased to see the lunker
bullhead. "I like to catch any kind of fish."

Sensing the bullhead was unusually hefty, Erlandson rushed his
record catch to DNR fisheries offices in Glenwood.

"They said, `wow,' " Erlandson recalled.

That is the most fanfare Erlandson has experienced, so far.
He said he hasn't told many folks that they are standing next to the
holder of Minnesota's bullhead record.

In fact, Erlandson didn't even keep his record.

"I just took it back to the lake and released it," he said.

It might be the only state-record fish ever released. A
bullhead, no less. What a theme for Waterville's Bullhead Parade.

Erlandson could ride the Catch-and-Release Float.