How would you know? You can't even fillet a catfish.

I've had a few encounters with them.

Speaking of bowfin, Ya'll ever see this video. I don't remember where I saw it, Maybe here?

AHHH.The ole choupic. I've caught a barge load of them things down here. There's places here you could catch one every cast. The only way they are eatin down here is we scale them and put them in the freezer for a while until the meat get firm. Cut the skin along the fin on the back and scoop the meat out with a spoon. Mix onions,bell peppers, celery green onions and a little bread crumbs and make into a patty and fry. It's not bad and the only way I will eat it. Them things will get over 10lbs here.

Here's the one I caught last week.

I am on a mudmotor group on facebook with a bunch of coonasses in it and they say you need to fillet them live and never let water touch the meat or it will turn to mush. They say if you fry them then they are some of the best tasting fish swimming the swamp.

That's kinda what I heard too. Fillet them alive, and immediately fry them or the meat gets mushy. Interesting.

Man that thing must be prehistoric. I hate those primitive nerve twitch type animals! Freaky!!!!

funny story...bout 1983 er so I was working near Akron in Hale Co. As I drove down to old Lock Eight I see an old car pulled off the road 100 yards er, right next to the woods. I drive out there and see an old black woman and 7-8 kids of all sizes....fishing in the cypress swamp water there. Barefoot, homemade poles made from small trees.

Old woman is old school, no looking up at the law, head down the whole time. Next to her is a gallon milk jug with part of the top cut out, half filled with water and prolly twenty six inch long mudfish squirming around....I ask her what she's going to do with those mudfish. She replies "we eats them".....I ask if they are good to eat, she replies "naw sir".....

I wish em luck and leave.....

God, that thing's ugly. Interpret that any way you want.

Pretty good one. I've seen a few in the 12# range over the years...saw some 50# 5 fish stringers in tournaments. There don't seem to be as many big ones as there used to be in the upper delta lakes we fished years ago though.

Good fish Mr Brock. There are bowfin tournaments?

I caught a pretty decent one, Sunday afternoon on a spinner bait.

Biggest I ever caught was probably about 10# (fm my shoulders to my knees when I was 13)...caught him while catfishing in the Yellow River. The one I put that 5 yr old on was exactly 12# on a tacklebox scale...caught him on a finger mullet in D'Olive Creek about 100 yds out of Mobile Bay.

We always called them Blackfish...also heard them called Bowfin, Grinnel, Mudfish, Lungfish, and Dogfish.

Blackfish is what we called them. Trash fish unless you like roadkill may be in your food group. Those fish can take over and eat up all the bream and bass you got up in fishing area. Pull next to boat and put a .22 shot in it's head. I have seen places one called blackfish lake that you could catch nothing except those until you finally would have to leave the spot. GOOD LUCK ON EATING IT!

The only thing them fools won't eat is a seagull

A fishing tackle shop down on the upper end of the Delta had a bowfin tournament for a few years back 15+ years ago. They started out doing it to sell all the crazy tackle in their store they couldn't get rid of: pumpkinseed worms with flame red tails, ugly-ass crankbaits, etc.

I went to a weigh-in and they had a pickup truck bed loaded with bowfins of all sizes including some as big or bigger than Matt's (in the photo above). Many of them were still alive and able to bite. Damned ugly mean nasty fish.

The state record is 18 lbs and some change. It was caught in lake Tuscaloosa. I can't imagine the fight one over 10 lbs could give a man.

We catch them pretty regular down here that are 10lb plus! I caught one a couple weeks ago that was pushing 15lbs and caught one 3 years ago I'm pretty sure would've beaten the current state record.

Funny part of that is when I caught the big one we were fishing in a creek for bass and had forgotten it was the weekend of the bowfin tournament. Boats started pouring in where we were so I just trolled on into the creek well past where we normally fish at to get away from the other boats. We had gone as far as we could go due to a log jam and was about to head back out when I caught it. I didn't have a set of scales at the time and was about to put it into the livewell just to mess with the tournament guys when it flipped out of the boat. I had no idea that it was a potential state record at the time.

We usually give them lead poisoning and turn them back for the turtles to eat.

Pretty sure that was out of Live Oak Landing in Stockton. That turned into a very large annual tournament with some pretty good pay out.

Yea down here they call them choupic. Pronounced shoo-pic. There are a lot of people down here that make choupic balls or something like salmon patties. They are very good, had a guy at work cook it for me. I caught one in the atchafalaya basin, and he destroyed my spinner bait. Literally was a ball of twisted metal.