walleye fishing surprise, burbot/ling

so I was out the other day jigging for some walleye when "tap tap" up to the surface came the 1st burbot or ling whichever you prefer to call it I have ever run into on the west arm?? now I am not a fanatical walleye jigging fisherman, I enjoy it from time to time but prefer the run and gun with lures for pike and bass so many on here may have come across this before in the west arm. it was only about 12" long.

I have a couple questions, have any of you caught burbot in the west arm or west side {west bay, middle west or northwest bay} before? and I have heard they are very good to eat if you get a decent sized fish, anyone try this?

incidently I posted about a year ago about eating freshwater drum {sheephead} anyone with results on that, I am still yet to have boated one to try after catching them regularly previous to my post?? lol

cheers all!

When I was a kid back in the 70's our family would camp near Lavigne and we'd go at dusk and catch catfish (burbot) so yes they exist in the western part of LN.
And sometimes they just happen to come along in the daytime and eat your bait. They are very good to eat. Download a cleaning method on YTube.

We used to catch them on simcoe. Not a catfish nor is it from the catfish family. its actually from the codfish family only freshwater. a 12"er might not be worth cleaning as from what i remember you only eat the upper back / tail portion and there are a couple of little oil sacks you need to take out or the meat will taste funny. great eating though!

Are you sure it was a ling and not a brown bullhead?

my french Canadian grandfather always called bullheads "barbotte"

definitely not a bullhead, its a burbot/ling I am 99 percent sure, sorry pic not great

pic didn't work?

oh yeah that's a ling. nice.

near as I can find "barbotte" is a French term for catfish or brown bullhead. maybe a slang type thing, I got this from a fish identification chart

Other Names
bullpout, horned pout, brown catfish, mudcat, common bullhead, marbled bullhead, squaretail, minister; French: barbotte brune.

website http://identifyfish.blogspot.ca/2010/11/br...-nebulosus.html

My fishing buddy is pretty adventurous when it comes to eating. Our last Nippising trip, he kept a drum and filleted it. He cooked one fillet to try. It was pan fried with no coating and he seasoned with salt and pepper. The meat was fairly firm and pretty much flavourless. It would actually probably be pretty decent if it was cooked in a batter or fish coating. The fish he cooked was probably about 3 to 3.5 pounds.

I've eat channel cats,carp and rock bass and didn't find a whole lot wrong with any of them. Haven't been able to get up the hog to try the sheepers. If u watch youtube cats and sheepers are highly sought after fish in the deep south and are considered good table fare.All what you're used to I guess. Happy fishing.

good on you porkpie! that's my plan when I get one I am going to batter and deep fry it. a little lemon and vinegar and I bet it wont be much different than the fish and chip store, lol.

a couple years ago I got one that tipped the scales at 14lbs in west bay, on a spinner bait! I wonder if he/she is still alive and what it weighs now??

I have tried bullheads but never rockers or carp. although I have a friend who eats rockbass all the time. I guess the panfish name came from somewhere. I have a bit of a mental block with the carp thing. lol. but its all fish

Nice ling. I've had incidental catches in the spring on deeper lakes but I've never had an August ling on Nipissing. They are very tasty!

Just about everybody down here eats catfish - its even a big menu item in the Cracker Barrel restaurants - its farm raised catfish - everything is good to eat if you know how to prepare it - and of course you were brought up eating it - when I was growing up we had this old timer living next door to us - he always told me to bring home whatever I caught and he would eat it - eels, carp, suckers etc. - kept his food bill down that way

Burbot or Ling were extremely common on Nipissing and connected waters at one time but they were regarded as a garbage fish and by spring the ice would be covered in thousands of dead ones year after year as ice fishermen threw them on the ice instead of back down the hole. By the late 70's they had virtually disappeared. Now it appears they are slowly repopulating as evidenced by more starting to show up more frequently in catches. The pic of the fish above is definitely a Burbot(Ling) not to be confused with the northern ontario french slang "barbotte" for catfish (brown bullhead).

This pic is of the new world record Burbot caught in Alberta in the winter of 2016. It went 25lbs 3oz. Nipissing by the way used to have scores of 10 pounders at one time and they are fantastic eating!! As mentioned above they are a member of the cod family.

This post has been edited by The Spank on Aug 25, 2017 - 11:49 am