Bullheads (black, brown and yellow)

Where bullheads have been recorded

1455 of the 1,788 Minnesota lakes on this site with fish records list bullheads, across 73 counties. Tap a dot to open that lake’s depth map.

How many turn up in DNR surveys

Minnesota DNR lake surveys use standard gear: gill nets set offshore for 24 hours (the main gear for walleye, northern pike, yellow perch, cisco, whitefish and trout), trap nets set near shore (the main gear for bluegill, crappie and bullheads), and on some lakes electrofishing, most often for bass. The DNR reports each gear separately, as fish per net set. These rates come from the newest standard survey of each lake on this site, 1959–2025 — a measure of how many fish a lake holds, not how many an angler will catch.

Often found with

Share of these lakes that also list each fish.

• Northern pike 95%
• Bluegill 94%
• Crappie 94%
• Yellow perch 87%
• Largemouth bass 84%
• Pumpkinseed 82%
• Walleye 79%
• White sucker 62%

How to recognize it

No scales, whiskers (barbels) around the mouth, an adipose fin and a rounded or square tail. The chin barbels and the base of the tail tell them apart. Many survey records say just “bullhead”, so this page covers all three.

Telling the three apart

Don’t confuse it with

Life in a Minnesota lake

Bullheads live throughout Minnesota but are more common in the southern half. They tolerate murky water and low oxygen better than most fish, so they often abound in lakes that winterkill when other fish die. The black bullhead is the hardiest and dominates warm, fertile waters; the yellow bullhead needs clearer water and lives in weedy bass-panfish lakes of central and southern Minnesota.

The female clears a shallow, saucer-like nest beneath cover such as fallen trees or thick plants, and both parents fan and protect the eggs. Newly hatched young travel in a dense ball, with the parents herding strays back. Look for these balls of fry in lake shallows in early summer.

Source: the sources below.

Rules and eating

Check the rules before you keep fish. Each lake page shows the regulations that apply there, and the Minnesota DNR fishing regulations page is the official source. Before eating fish from a particular lake, check the Minnesota Department of Health’s fish consumption guidance.

All 1455 lakes with bullheads