I live in England and have been holidaying in the south of France since I was a young lad. I used to fish in the ponds and streams around the house and the village and I would pull out bullhead catfish and pumpkinseed sunfish by the bucket load. I set up an old aquarium outside and used to stock it with fish from the pond. I tried various combinations such as catfish, perch, carp, roach, tench, sunfish and even pike! By far the most interesting was the Pumkinseed Sunfish. I caught them at all different sizes and put them all together in the tank. Being wild caught fish, and some of them being full-grown I expected them to be timid and take some time to acclimatise, well I was wrong. Within about half an hour the sunfish where squabbling over territories and hunting for food. One of the larger sunfish was taking worms from my hand by the end of the day! I have kept tropicals for a long time and I have never come across fish that are so confident and quick to learn, and remember these were wild caught fish! Id like to see how quick a wild caught Oscar would take to hand feed! These fish were also highly predatory and would swallow anything that moved within size but would also take floating pellets. The ponds and lakes were also full of bullhead catfish and during the spring you could see black clouds of catfish fry swimming in the water. I have also witnessed bullhead parents guarding their fry. I would love to set up a native aquarium back home in England but I have never come across these species. I think you need a licence to keep bullheads here, as they become a pest if released into the waterways. France is full of them! Does anyone know anywhere that sells these fish in England?
