Flatheads

Being a walleye guy I have never posted in the catfish forum until now. I received a call yesterday (Tuesday) from a friend asking me if I would like to go catch a few flatheads Tuesday evening after work. I’m not one to sit and bottom fish much but I do love to hook into a big flathead once and a while so I told him I would go. I figured we would be fishing some sort of live bait but I couldn’t have been more wrong. After we got the boat in the water my buddy handed me a blade bait (Sonar) and told me to tie it on. I looked at him like he was crazy but he was dead serious. I asked him if they had been snagging flatheads but he swore up and down that all the fish they had caught were caught in the mouth. We headed up to the lock & dam and vertical jigged the sonars along the lock walls. We ended up each catching 3 flatheads with my buddy getting big fish honors with one that went over 15Lbs. These fish really crushed those blade baits on the fall. At first they almost feel like a snag until they began to move. Not many fish in the river put up a fight like a flathead catfish. My buddy also caught a channel cat that went arount 8Lbs but he released it. An added bonus were the white bass (stripers) that we caught. When we casted into the turbulent tailrace below the dam and used a steady retrieve with our bladebaits we were getting huge stripers on nearly every cast for a while. We did not keep any of the stripers but they were a blast to catch. I have rarely seen stripers this large down here on pool 12. I haven’t caught that many fish in one night for a very long time. Soon we will be fishing for giant drum with crawdads which is always a blast and a test of your equipment. I don’t want to spend too-much time away from the walleyes as they should be picking up very soon as well.

Eyehunter

Thanks for sharing!

That is an odd presentation! I ‘spose it looks like a live bait…so why not.

My question is…after catching a 15 lbs flat, why would you go back to 15 inch bait fish!

Sounds like you had a very good night if fishing

next time out try some oneeyes instead i catch more flatheads on them than zonars & they just hammer them

I too thought it was an odd presentation but it worked. I wouldn’t have believed it but I did it and it worked quite well. My biggest flathead was caught around 6 years ago on a deep diving crankbait and weighed in at just over 30 Lbs. While walleye fishing I have caught dozens of nice flatheads over the years on crankbaits, jigs and live bait. I won’t keep channel cats or blue cats but I love to eat flatheads. Snow white meat every bit as good as walleye is.

Actually I didn’t go back to catching the stripers after the flatheads moved in to feed. The stripers provided some pretty fast action and they were all large fish over 2 Lbs each. They were big enough to rip off a little line on the drag when reeling them in. By no means baitfish unless you are a giant flathead. The stripers must be about ready to spawn as they were all really dark and colorful.

I was hoping to hook into one of the big flats last night but the largest one I caught was only around 6Lbs. The 6 pound fish looked pretty good until my buddy got his 15. I did lose a big fish but I have no idea what it was. It was a ton of fun but not enough to make me give up on the walleyes.

Eyehunter