Strange Fish Geocache - Bull(is)head

Bit of an idle stretch of late.  And at such times I get around to one of my ongoing projects, the Strange Fish Geocache Series.  Its a spin off of my multi species fishing expeditions of the Covid era.  The premise is that I'll catch an odd, unloved fish species somewhere then put "the cache near the catch".  Setting out to catch a specific species is never fool proof, and there are not that many gaps in the map of local geocaches.  But I do have my moments.

Recently my attention wandered over to a body of water....well mostly mud and weeds but there is water there too....called Bullis Pond.  It supposedly is named after a large farm that occupied the area but is now entirely surrounded by commercial development.  At one end is a huge culvert that must channel run off water from an expansive parking lot around the local mall.  This is not good for water quality.  But here's a photo from better days...

Undated but the horse and wagon would seem to put it circa 1900.  And it must be early spring....I see a couple of kids goofing around out on the ice but also see grass growing up.  Oddly my hunt through early maps of the area does not show the pond at all.  Just not remarkable I guess.

Here's the site today,  roughly the same perspective.

I assumed there would be something living in there.  But my initial scouting trip was not encouraging.  Shallow.  Muddy.  Home to turtles and waterfowl.  Indeed, the pond might freeze to the bottom in particularly harsh winters and Lord knows what sort of chemicals run off that giant mall parking lot.  But still....

At least there is zero fishing pressure on this body of water.  In a few minutes I had on the line a mighty specimen that had never in its life seen a hook.  Behold.

Appropriate to Bullis Pond this is a Bullhead.  Specifically a black bullhead.  They tend to have variable color depending on their surroundings but generally are dark brown above and yellow below.  From what I've read they can't actually survive being frozen solid, but just about anything else won't bother them.  These are the cockroaches of the fish world.  Heat, low oxygen, salty run off....meh, no problem.  So an excellent choice for a Strange Fish geocache.  Now what do I have in stock that I can modify?

Bullheads are an odd shape, so most of the things I have lying around won't serve.  But I've done a few earlier Strange Fish using these earbud cases.  In fact I have one that was an earlier prototype for the Creek Chub container.

The color can be changed easily....its adding fins and such that is tricky.  As there will be inner waterproofing as well I decided I could buzz some slits in the top, put in fins and such made of thin polycarbonate, then glue them in with marine cement.  Here's how it looks with brown base layer bullhead paint job.

And with multi-hued bullhead paint.  Remember I'm not going for strict accuracy here.  A geocache should be whimsical, and should be hidden but not impossible to find.

I think the beady little eyes work nicely!  I still have to add "whiskers" and perhaps trim the tail a bit but this should be a worthy entry in the Strange Fish Series.