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SPEAKER 1: Being just a California city boy, I don't have any really good idea what you're doing down here. We're right opposite Saint Paul City Hall. And on the river, what are you fishing for?

SPEAKER 2: Well, the size of that rig we got there on the ground, you'd think we're going after these barges going down the river. But tonight, we're out for a mudcat.

SPEAKER 1: Well, what is a mudcat?

SPEAKER 2: A mudcat around here is a classification of a larger catfish. Your normal bullhead that we catch, which is numerous in many numbers in our lakes, rivers, and streams around here, is a smaller version of a mudcat.

A mudcat not being black in color with the underside of the belly, being predominantly a bright yellow receding to the tail and being lighter in color, where your mudcat that we're going after tonight will be a green army [? darb ?] color predominantly over its complete body.

SPEAKER 1: Now, this is some kind of scavenger fish, is that it?

SPEAKER 2: Right. This is a bottom feeder. This fish gets most of its food from, well, dead fish laying at the bottom of the water. If you look in the water now, you noticed here, you've got some air bubbles coming up along the side.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I noticed then.

SPEAKER 2: It's a quite possibility, where we're fishing only being approximately 15 feet into the water, that you'll find that your mudcats tend to nest in small holes that they have burled into the river front along the river edge. Down in the Mississippi waters-- down through Mississippi, Tennessee, your blue cat and channel will nest and go into these small holes along the river's edge.

SPEAKER 1: How many of these fish are there around here? Is this a good place to fish? You wouldn't suspect it we're, right next to the Robert Street Bridge, and there's cars going down Shepherd Road there. Who would ever think of coming down here?

SPEAKER 2: Well, down across from the old northern states, located down at the bridge approximately a mile and fourth down the river due south, this type of fishing in the last four or five years has been very excellent, speaking in the rough fish, catching your normal river carp in size from 3 pounds to 40 pounds. Getting into another rough fish classification, your sheepshead, Buffalo.

Some of your normal river bullhead will average from 3 to 6 pounds, mostly caught on the bottom of the river using crawlers. If you want to watch the line in the water right now, we've got a little action down here. Just take a look right there at that line. You'll notice that she pulls slack into the water. More than likely, it is a bullhead because the tension is-- notice the line moving?

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, it sure is. What are you going to do?

SPEAKER 2: Well, we're going to leave it right there in the water. More than likely, in the bigger fish, see that we have a mudcat out there. Right now, it would be best to let the fish proceed to take the bait, hoping that the fish would swallow the hook. This way here, it would make a better chance for the fisherman, knowing that the fish wouldn't get away.

SPEAKER 1: Well, isn't there some possibility that he'd grab that hook and start running with it and you'd lose your rod?

SPEAKER 2: No. The type of rod that we've got here right now, if you'll notice that it's set. It's got a release lever on it to let the line run free as soon as the fish hits it. And once the line is set free and we set the drag on it, this fish can take this line out right now and I could more than likely leave the pole on the ground there.

SPEAKER 1: As I understand it, most people aren't big on fishing rough fish. I think it's said as often as not that they're not particularly good eating. What do you say about that?

SPEAKER 2: Well, it's just like when you buy a steak. Some people eat a filet mignon. If we saw a carp out of its natural habitat, knowing the water that it was obtained from, if the water was clear and clean, I see no reason why this fish couldn't be taken from the water and processed.

In the deep south, your large carp, sheepshead, buffalos, golden eyes, they take these fish a great delicacy with the fish. 95% of these fish instead of being roasted, fillet out and cooked, like you would normally cook a fresh water fish, these fish are more than attentively smoked in a smokehouse.

Commercially speaking, to smoke this type of fish would cost invariably a large amount of money, but an investment of approximately $65 in an old, discarded refrigerator with the door taken off to the front, with a bottom taken out of a average fisherman in his garage with the right equipment could smoke his own fish for approximately little or nothing because in the store today, a 6 ounce fish would-- 6 to 8 ounce fish would approximately cost you $1.25. And this is pretty expensive eating.

SPEAKER 1: So you're saying the way to prepare these fish is to smoke them, and you can do it yourself?

SPEAKER 2: Right. Most of these fish are gutted, cleaned, the heads are left on with the tail, fins intact, and smoked in this condition. When you receive the fish, if you purchase it or a friend gives it to you, it'll be the whole fish.

SPEAKER 1: And then you eat it cold after it's smoked?

SPEAKER 2: Right. Some like it warm. I preferably, myself, like it at room temperature. I've always said, a good fisherman eats a smoked carp. He eats it the same way that the Hawaiians eat poi.

He just tears it apart with his fingers, and he gets his hands all greasy. And when he gets done, he smells like a fish market really. But that's one of the few enjoyments of eating smoked fish.