Eat or Catch and Release

for those of you that target flatheads…do you eat many of the smaller ones or do you release pretty much everything you catch? If you do eat them how are they?

they may taste like pumpkin pie, but i’ll never know, cause i ain’t ever eating one…

they are fun to catch though!

Flathead catfish are great eating. Make sure you bleed them out before cleaning. I cut off the tail or cut the gill so they bleed out. Larger fish should be CPR’d not because they taste bad because they would be high in pollutants. I rarely keep a catfish as I prefer to eat baitfish like walleyes and gills. They have a nice light white meat kind of like cod and you can get a nice belly fillet out them in addition to the sides.

Personally I wouldn’t eat even a little one. Then I pretty much release every fish that is not going belly up when I release them. They become the apex predator pretty quick, and unless another flathead gets them, every one has a good chance at reaching 30-40#s.

I hear channel cats are delicious and taste better.

Actually channel cats taste like a bucket full of pee to me unless they are less than 2lbs and I never catch them that small. I also know for a fact that big flatties make a nice head mount.

There are some that say the bigger the better tasting and the belly flesh is the best part.

All I can say about that is, the larger fish have been around since the 70’s. Before the clean water act. All the metals/pbc’s ect are stored in this fat.

I doubt I could eat enough where it’s going to bother me in my life anymore…but then the trophy fish piece kicks in. Just like walleyes or blue gills, take all the big ones and what’s left are the little guys.

My policy for guiding has always been, if a person wants to take fish home that’s fine by me as long as it’s under 10 pounds. I’ve never had anyone take a fish home. I did have two fish in the last four years that were harvested because of being gill hooked and were bleeding badly.

Just seems to me that the large fish whether it be walleye or flatheads are to valuable a resource to take home for dinner. Like walleyes, it’s legal to do, doesn’t mean I won’t cringe when seeing it happen.

I do strongly believe we have a pretty darn good flathead fishery in our stretch of the Miss and it’s tributaries and I also believe it’s mainly because of two things.

1. Flats are under fished
2. All of the people I know that fish them regularly practice Catch Photo and Release.

The Clean Water Act and the MN DNR to some extent helped too of course. I left the WI DNR out because of their 25 fish daily limit.

What if I do all of the above. I will only eat a flathead like up to maybe 15lbs but I only do it about once a year. They are good.

For the most part I put them all back. I will chose other fish for take home eaters. pike wallys perch………

I have ate a lot of flatheads, and I must say, they are my favorite eating fish, ahead of even walleyes. Being they are a predator, rather than a scavenger, you don’t find the muddy tasting meat as you do with channels. As far as keeping them goes, I always practice selective harvest. I have never kept one over 8 pounds to eat. In fact, they are usually my favorite size. The belly meat is fantastic on flatheads. When I get done filleting them, it’s usually a head with a spine. Anyway, always practice selective harvest. My motto is, if it looks big, throw it back. Seems to work out all right. My cooking tip for flatheads is cook them a little longer than a walleye fillet. I like them so the meat is nice and firm. Make sure to cook the wetness out of the meat. Sets up nice and chewy, almost like chicken.

Let the 10lbs and over go… The big ones are good gene stock to keep the fishery going.
If you want to keep a smaller one they are a nice treat, you can only keep 2 flats with one over 24inches.

I let them all go,but dont have a problem with anyone keeping a few.

Never kept any before, but………now that I’ve tasted my sons’ blackened catfish, every once in a while I will probably take one under 10 lbs for the pan. Excellent eating!!!!

I may have kept 3 under ten pounds in the last 2 years. I also prefer pike, gills, crappies over catfish.

Never eaten flat, but young channels are delicious if you ask me. At the least the one we kept out of the Misouri river were. We never kept anything over 2-3 lbs though.

Nowadays I pretty much only keep a flat only if it’s not gonna make it…
Not that I have anything against it,I agree they are great eating,I have had many a flathead fry…
The main reason is I find it fairly easy to find the “fiddler” size channels…Excellent table fare

Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time finding big fish…

Could someone post pics or discribe the diff. between flats and channel’s, so if one is hooked you can tell the differance?

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Could someone post pics or discribe the diff. between flats and channel’s, so if one is hooked you can tell the differance?

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Flats (first two pics): tan, brown, black. Definitely a flatter head than a channel. Mostly square tail.

Channels (last two pics): grey-silver. Small ones have spots. More pointed head than a flat. Forked tail.

These are all Lake Wissota fish.

Good post Jason, What happened to your armored glove?

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Good post Jason, What happened to your armored glove?

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Feel free to book a trip with me, Kevin, and I’ll show you where I keep it.

Jason Halfen Outdoors guided fishing trips

I have been admiring your skill for some time. Very much worth the fees I am sure especially for Wissota. However, I am just a poor river rat with no easy access to the river anymore. I have used your dragging presentions with great success when I do get there. It is hard to leave the lake here were giant cats roam. I get 5-20 fish here a night averaging 10lbs vs couple I used to get on the river. No flatties here though that I have found.

If I had to guess though, Do you keep them in Dustin’s boat under steering wheel?

Thanks Jason, Now whats a blue catfish,? I beleive we have some in a small lake here in Lino (Golden)

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Could someone post pics or discribe the diff. between flats and channel’s, so if one is hooked you can tell the differance?

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Flats (first two pics): tan, brown, black. Definitely a flatter head than a channel. Mostly square tail.

Channels (last two pics): grey-silver. Small ones have spots. More pointed head than a flat. Forked tail.

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Also, probably the most easy and obvious thing you’ll see right away: Flatheads have a noticable underbite (lower jaw in front) while channels have a noticable overbite.

With the channels in Kev’s lake, I’m thinking you might want to book a trip with Kev!

No gloves needed!

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Thanks Jason, Now whats a blue catfish,? I beleive we have some in a small lake here in Lino (Golden)

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There are no blue cats in Minnesota.

A big sigh for iowa. Aaahmmmmmm.

Well, anyways, I do eat channel cats. I like them in the spring but I don’t that really matters. I think they actually eat nastier stuff in the early spring. I don’t like runts, I like them about 5-6 pounds. If cleaned and trimmed properly, they taste great. There are tons of them and they don’t take that many years to replace. I guess there are trophy sized channels out there but I haven’t seen them around here.

I love catfish, one of all time my favorite foods. But, I’m just as happy to eat the farm raised channel cats as anything. Filleted, rolled in corn meal and deep fried in hot oil…not something you should eat all the time (kind of like donuts), but a tasty treat. And have to break out some Frank’s Red Hot and a cold beer to wash it all down!

I do CPR all flatheads, and depending on where I’m fishing most channel cats. The closest river to me I wouldn’t eat fish out of, especially in summer. But, I’d keep small channel cats from other streams or even a big river like the Mississippi…

I do prefer smaller fish (up to 3#), mainly because of the PCBs and other contaminants that can collect in the fatty tissue. Heck, I even remove the dark fattier part of the flesh when I eat salmon in a restaurant!

Shawn

ps I remember some restaurants that deep fry the small pan dressed catfish, that’s a good preparation as well…

I really wanted to respond to the eating part of the thread by saying that flatheads taste like cardboard soaked in battery acid, but I have to be honest…oh wait, no I don’t! It’s more like tofu rolled in sawdust and fried in motor oil.

Seriously, though, I keep about 3 or 4 flatheads per year. Typically an 8 or 9 pounder is perfect. I never keep the little ones that are especially fat or that have taken an exceptionally large bait – I see trophy potential in them. I’ll keep the ones that bleed a lot or when the hook has caused structural damage to the jaw. I don’t like to keep any pre-spawn fish either. I wish they didn’t taste so darned good, in all honesty. They’re still a mercury concern so even at that size (which is 5+ years old already) they’re not something you should eat more than once a month (or at all if you are now or will ever be carrying a child).

As everyone says, the belly meat is the most wonderful, flaky, and light meat around. It beats walleye by a country mile. Just take all red meat off any part of the fillets and skin off the membranes from the belly meat and you’re good to go.

But don’t be one of those guys that likes it so much he buys a bigger freezer….please!

No Flats for me but channel is fair game in my book.

Speaking of eating…if they are over 28 inches, I’ve found these to help make them tasty!!

Baked Walleye

Barbecue Walleye

Boiled Walleye

Broiled Walleye

Coconut Walleye

Deep Fried Walleye

Lemon Walleye

Pan Fried Walleye

Pepper Walleye

Pineapple Walleye

Sauteed Walleye

Walleye and Potatoes

Walleye Burger

Walleye Creole

Walleye Gumbo

Walleye Salad

Walleye Sandwich

Walleye Soup

Walleye Stew

Walleye-kabobs

Stir-Fried Walleye

BK Gump Walleye Co.

You forgot the coffee ground covered walleye.

You can eat it in the garbage can or out.