Bullheads will frequently take a bait and mouth it before committing to eat it. When the line starts to move, wait a few seconds before setting the hook, or you may yank the bait right out of its small mouth.

Bullheads will eat just about anything digestible. In the wild they naturally feed on snails, fish, insects, smaller fish, worms, crayfish, leeches, dead animals and various plants -- a trait that endears them to anglers who are free to use a variety of baits. Anglers can duplicate these natural baits or use their imagination and improvise, with the same results. Use earthworms, chicken liver or tainted fish, but keep them small, since most bullheads are going to weigh less than a pound in size. A big bullhead can reach 3 or 4 pounds, but these are fairly rare.

You can even share your lunch or clean out your refrigerator, with excellent results. Marshmallows, corn or hot dogs will do in a pinch.

As most bullhead anglers know, there is a downside to waiting for the fish to begin swallowing the bait. Bullheads are notorious hook-eaters, and waiting before setting the hook is a sure way to bury it somewhere deep in a bullhead's gullet. I've hooked plenty of bullheads with nothing but the line showing from down in their throats, and it's no small feat to get the hook back out. A hook disgorger or a pair of long-nosed pliers is your only hope, unless you opt for the quicker solution of cutting the line and retrieving your hook later while cleaning the fish.

The bullhead's defense system consists of sharp pectoral and dorsal fin spines. As a boy, I seriously doubted a bullhead's ability to hurt me, so I experimented on one -- a mistake I'll never make again. Work gloves can help, but caution is called for whether you're gloved or going at it barehanded. Practice makes perfect, and after a while you can unhook a lightly hooked bullhead without getting poked.

Bullheads are found throughout Iowa in waters of all kinds. They can tolerate poorer, muddier conditions than many other species. Shallow creeks and rivers, weedy lakes and even somewhat polluted, urban-area waters are all tolerable for bullheads. In some aging, sediment-filled lakes and ponds, the bullhead may be the only fish capable of staying alive.

"We don't manage for bullheads," said Steve Waters, fisheries biologist supervisor in southeast Iowa.

The reason? No one has to, said Waters.

Bullheads are found throughout the region's natural, shallow lakes. And according to Waters, anglers don't need much in the line of equipment.

"We used sticks and kite string with bacon and baloney tied on," said Waters.

"We didn't even use a hook! Some of the fish dropped off and some didn't. We eventually progressed to using hooks on the kite string."

Many of the lakes Waters manages have remnant populations of bullheads. Belva Deer Lake in Keokuk County, Lake Keomah in Mahaska County and Lake Macbride in Johnson County all have bigger bullheads, but smaller populations. Lake Wapallo has some of the region's biggest bulls, fish that will run between 12 and 15 inches and weigh up to 3 pounds.