Upper Mississippi River Flathead Catfish Report

With the cool weather and high water, the ol’ Flathead prespawn season has started out a little slow on the Mighty Muddy.

Water temps peaked at 72 for a couple short days then dipped back down to the upper 60’s. The water flow would normally be around 20,000 cubic feet per second and hasn’t been lower than 42,000 cfs and in the middle of May was slowly dropping in the 50k cfs.

However persistence and a little blind luck always pays off when fishing!

This last Sunday we started early…well early for me anyway by anchoring up on a high confidence location. Well, I had high confidence late night, but wasn’t sure about early.

The good thing about sitting from 8 pm until 11:30 pm is a person has a chance to get to know the person your fishing with very well! I may have told some of my storys twice in one outing!

We ended the night with on 6 pounder in the boat and two missed fish.

Monday night we had plans of fishing a pile of wood that we’ve done well in over the years. Some may remember the old Cotton Wood Tree. Well the tree is gone but the snag and the memories are still here. Due to a lost for a short time cell phone and a couple other unplanned delays, we didn’t get going until 8:30.

We skipped the Cotton Wood and went for the point of wood nearest the main channel.

When 11 pm came around I started to second guess myself. I though we might try the first snag and started talking out loud about the pros and cons of moving. Nothings going on here. But then others have fished the snag we would move to and they didn’t catch anything. The last 5 nights out we either had runs or fish in the boat where we were at….that’s it.

“We’re staying put” I exclaimed! It wasn’t a minute after that when the bullie was shaking and it stopped with a violent and quick bend in the rod! Fish ON!!

Fighting a fish in the 30+ pound range in current is not for the weak as Aimee Nelson can attest too from Saturday night.

After fishing my practice spot and watching my bullhead get robbed, it was a pretty slow night. I remember is was 11:30 with nothing happening when I was asked how long we would be staying out. I said about an hour…hour and a half. The look in Aimee’s eyes told the tale. The look was of “I could be in my flannel pj’s with hot coacoa watching a dvd right now…a whole HOUR yet??”

At 12:15 I heard the music to a flathead fishermans ears of the thump and line out alarm. I place the rod into Aimee’s hands and she set the hook, but after a fight that brought the cat too the surface, the hook just came out. As I saw the hook come to the boat all I could say was…”you have got to be kidding!”

Jeremy was consoling Aimee on her lost fish (about 15 pounds I guessed) while I was checking the other rods. In disbielif I was watch the rod behind us bend but no line out alarm. I took the empty rod out of Aimee’s hands and asked her if she would like to land a fish. LOL!

The tiredness in her arms from fighting the first fish hadn’t left yet and I’m happy to say, this one was bigger! Many words came out of her mouth like “I don’t want to do this anymore” and “when’s it going to stop? My arms HURT!”

She did reel it in all by herself and it was a HOOT to watch! 31 pounds for her first flathead. Not too bad, although I think her Mother beat her out by a few pounds four or five years ago.

Then there was Jeremy the golfer.

It wasn’t very long after Aimee’s that Jeremy made his par 25. LOL! I have to give Jeremy some credit though. He had a sore back and did the very best he could to help get a good picture of Aimee and her fish. Brought in his own 25 pounder AND had to be to work in the morning. Of course with this flurry of activity and fish in the boat, both of them forgot about the “a whole hour yet” statement and we stayed out longer. Long enough to put them back at home sometime around 4:30 am. Catfishing will do that to you!

Speaking of troopers…there’s Laura from the weekend prior. Laura is Ido’s own Jeff Huberty’s daughter. The one that was worried about snakes.

Laura pulled 3 flats into the boat with the largest one pictured here.

I tell you what. She picked up the cat with a little instruction like she’s been doing it all her life. If she didn’t have such a bad scaly fish influence in her father, she would make a wonderful full time catfishing woman.

The flathead fishing on the Mississippi is just starting to kick off. With some warmer nights coming, pick up a dozen bullheads and spend a little night time on the water relaxing the way only catfisherman do!

Flathead Fishermen~ We own the night!