With the modest spike in water levels over the last week, and the catfish spawn winding down, I decided last night would be a good bet for my first all-night caffeine-fueled fishing trip of the year. So, I caught a bucket of bait and fished the river in Iowa City from just after midnight til about 6:30 this morning.
The results were modest, but not terrible. One smallish (c. 22″) flatcat smacked a crawler at about 3:30 and woke me up. I had several nice big wild suckers for bait, but all the attention they got was a couple of runs from gar, which are the one native, place-in-the-ecosystem, belong-in-the-Midwest fish species I truly dislike. 
Small chubs (didn’t find any large ones) and crawlers produced several small channel cat. I also landed one gar, and resisted the urge to leave him for the scavengers. 
I missed a strike on a chub at about 4:30 which I suspect was another flathead, judging by the slow pace at which it took out line.
Not a total waste of sleep, but given that I have caught seven or eight flathead already this year while fishing for walleye in broad daylight, I am reminded why I go out on fewer all-night trips each summer. 
