I decided that my next target species would be bullheads, since they should be fairly easy to catch in Olmsted County at this time of year. A little research suggested that the best way to catch them is with a bottom rig consisting of an egg sinker, bead, swivel, leader, a fairly large hook (#4 to #1), and a nightcrawler.

Several local lakes are often mentioned as good bullhead water, including Willow Creek Reservoir, Chester Woods Reservoir, and Silver Creek Reservoir. The consensus is that the best time to fish for bullheads is in the evening, especially as the sun sets.

Willow Creek Reservoir

I headed to Willow Creek Reservoir at about 6:00 pm. I started fishing with the recommended bottom rig, but all I caught was bluegill after bluegill. As sunset approached (8:21 pm), I eventually landed a Yellow Bullhead from the fishing pier—my only one of the night.

See below for the photos. They’re not the greatest, since they were taken after dark with the flash on my iPhone.

The Unexpected Solution

The funny thing is how I finally caught the bullhead.

It wasn’t on a proper bottom rig at all—but on a chunk of nightcrawler attached to a spinnerbait. A spinnerbait is definitely not intended for catching bullheads. It’s generally a bass lure. But in this case, it worked perfectly because it solved two problems at once: it got the bait to the bottom and prevented bluegill from stealing the worm.

By the time I thought of trying a bottom rig again, the sun was going down and I was running out of daylight. I figured, what the heck—let’s see if this moderately heavy spinnerbait can deliver the worm to the bottom and keep the bluegill off the hook. And sure enough, it worked.

I was a little surprised that the bullhead didn’t put up a huge fight, even though it was a decent-sized fish. I didn’t measure it, but I’d estimate it was around 15 inches long.

Turning a Bass Lure into a Bullhead Rig

A spinnerbait is designed to be cast and retrieved, vibrating, flashing, and moving through open water. I did the exact opposite.

I dropped it straight down with a nightcrawler, let it sink, and let it sit on the bottom—essentially using it as a weight. And for bullheads, that’s perfect. They don’t care about vibration or flash. They care about:

• scent
• bottom contact
• a worm sitting still

The spinnerbait’s head did everything my earlier rigs couldn’t. It punched through weeds, kept the worm pinned to the mud, got the bait down quickly, and was simply too big for bluegill to mess with. It also solved my practical problems: limited time, fading light, weeds, and bait‑stealing panfish.

I’m told the bite felt soft at first because bullheads often “taste” the bait before committing—and that seems exactly right in this case.

What’s Next

So now I’ve got a Yellow Bullhead checked off my species list. Catching Black and Brown Bullheads in the future should feel a little less complicated—although next time I’ll try to use a proper rig rather than a completely jimmy‑rigged‑spinnerbait-and‑worm combo 🙂