Catching Flatheads with Live Channel Catfish

i am heading up to pennsylvania to go fish for flatheads on the susquehanna river there's one little problem i've got three little boys that want to go with me but i'm going to be out until 5 or 7 a.m so i don't know if they should come on this one there's going to be deers be safe well the gps says it's a little under three hours to the susquehanna and i'm going to be meeting up with catfishing guides from hooked on catfishing charters and we're gonna see if we can't get into some great post-spawn flatheads all right i made it to the boat ramp and i see a boat with just the right number of fishing rods you know this is one of those trips where i just feel half cocked you know i don't have my rain boots or my rain pants so uh we're hoping this rain doesn't get too crazy yeah let's come out by yourself yeah just be right on yeah there we go these look like the uh um big cat fever rods correct but the older models right yeah they're first gen like that side imaging is sweet isn't it it's amazing technology we're gonna check out some rods kind of a mixture of channel catfish rods and some big boy rods and see what happens the nice thing about bull heads and channel catfish small ones they are fabulous big flathead bait man flatheads like to eat little catfish so uh we'll see what happens here you know just anything's possible all right guys we got some some classic catfishing gear here we've got the ugly stick tiger rods and painted green for high vis at night we've got some of the early edition first edition big cat fever rods here and we've got the monster rod holder 3345 rod holders uh those things are awesome tough yeah yeah yeah they are yeah i used to have those scotties see them plastic jobbies oh yeah and they're good when you first buy them yeah once the sun cooks them for a little while you get brittle really brittle and weak and i won't put anything but these rods in those plastic holders yeah so i like this particular presentation i'll even use this on my flathead rig sometimes oh yeah then i put a float up above to prop the worm up off the bottom so you don't get stuck quite as often okay gotcha you got a little bank sinker you've got it about what three feet off the bottom you've got a dropper loop and then you got a little float there just to kind of help with the presentation even if you got droopy line this still keeps up off the bottom nice all right so we got a big fat night crawler going on these uh channel catfish rods here and i thread them up just like a rubber worm nice looks great straight up and down when you're fishing reservoirs like this you really don't need a lot of lead to stick your bait on the ground there's not that current that you're fighting all the time and so you don't need those big huge beefy river rods that they sell uh you really can get away with a lot more sensitive rods and frankly what i think are more fun rods to use oh we got a little tippity tap right here so what do you do yeah when do you like to set the hook i like for them to move just a little bit with it sometimes they'll almost set the hook themselves okay so you're looking for take the rod down say a third of the way uh-huh or completely loaded yeah go ahead and grab the rod and set the hook okay or if you see the line wandering off yes so he's got two live wells here one for the panfish and one for the catfish so you can see these little baby channel cats in here and uh some bigger ones over there that's flathead candy right there which i think tells you why they aren't very hook shy unlike carp right because they're used to biting things that stab them in the mouth all right so for the flatheads got a similar sort of dropper rig here with a big old treble hook in the tail and a king kale hook through the lips and about six ounces of lead on the bottom there we go i got that from muskie fishing actually the muskie fishermen use uh yeah the stinger quick strike rig for uh suckers you know right now it's the first week of july and so the catfish spawn is just beginning to end and it varies from location to location but the catfish spawn is a tough time to catch catfish generally the female catfish get on the eggs and then they aren't eating while they're they're spawning and then they're the first to leave and then the males come in and take care of the babies until they're old enough to swim off on their own and so they're out of action while they're guarding the nest so during that time of the spawn it can really slow down but the biggest catfish tend to get off the spawn first and it just varies a lot from location to location so uh right now we're just entering the uh the end of the spawn i think here and we're hoping to catch some big females who've just come off the spawn all right we're gonna go and check these worm rods really quick little we got a little bait right there the little ones kind of suck because they'll poke you a little oh gosh yeah like a little bit of venom yeah it stings you know the best part about fishing with live bait means we haven't been skunked we just caught a fish man yeah we got the skunk off like 30 minutes in we're on fire i was just telling joe here i could tell he was a bait caster man because his spinning reels are rigged up left-handed this is a weird fact about reels with spinning reels you reel with your dominant hand with bait casters you cast with your dominant hand i was like look at it swallowed it man that is a slab bluegill that'll catch a big old flathead right there well the sun is setting we've got a couple channel cat rods out a couple flathead rods out and uh we're just gonna see what happens the bite's supposed to get hotter as the night goes on so uh we're just easing into it and uh getting all of our gear ready and we've got the weight the weight is on here we're looking for rod twitches or wandering line or that ever popular bait clicker we've been here for a good while the sun has set and other than a few packs by channel catfish not much has happened so we're going to pick up and move on and kind of hunt around a little bit until the night properly settles in we got one of our rods stuck here so we're just driving the boat around 180 degrees on the back side of the snag and see if we can't pop it out here this is really common in these reservoirs because there's all this flooded timber and debris and rocks and and that sort of thing so it's just something you live with when you flathead fish okay down yeah it's a nice calm day but with no current you got to use these double anchors so dropping an anchor off the front reversing then we'll drop a second acre off the back tighten it up like a hammock all right so we got our live bait had been hanging out in this little flow troll down here and uh gonna just chuck it out and we're fishing a a a slope right yeah it's a drop down into about 60 70 feet of water behind us gotcha and above us it's in the teens you can see here how he's rigging up these little channel catfish you got that big king kale hook through the lips and then uh i went on six saw it eight treble hook and just sticking them through the back about 14 inch channel cat right there something like that i'm going to drop them straight onto the boat all right joe here is zip tying glow sticks to the tips of the rod there so we can really see those subtle twitches that you get with flatheads and down there he's got a little black light as well and that black light shines on the line and on the paint on the tips of the rod and stuff it really makes it light up so you can see what your line's doing really well which is important because half the time with flatheads you don't see the rod twitch you just see the line wander off we've been here for a while not much has happened so we're gonna change spots and uh yeah we'll see what happens [Music] set up on this new spot here and we got a little bit of current and we just got two rods dropped straight down with big old catfish on him as bait and then we're dropping uh the rods of the brim off the corners here and let's see what happens go ahead and wind down okay yep yeah special one you didn't come loose to me darn you don't look that bad you might re-hook him just see if his hook hole is torn and just chunk it back out he looks pretty good our little friend came back oh sometimes when you're getting a good bite and you pull the video camera out please have you experienced that yeah the camera shot yeah we're getting a lot of action here we've already had three strong bites so i think something's gonna hook up real quick here this rod over here is getting a lot of twitches but might just be that channeled catfish getting getting active down there which sometimes is a good sign sometimes when a predator comes sniffing around the bait starts panicking and thrashing a little bit but now when it goes down roughly a third of the way just looking fine there he is let's get him up off that bottom oh he's putting up a little fight all right not bad yeah let's bring him up away from that anchor just grab the leader on that dude luke okay if you want him i'll do it oh hello kitty welcome to the party there we go there we go you know it's been a while since i've caught a susquehanna flathead look at that boy nice little seven eight pound uh flatty right there not too shabby huh all right let's get him back in the water all right we got it re-rigged up with a little channel cat let's chuck it out there and try to catch his friends all right well we've been on this spot a little bit of hour so and uh we got one fish but uh this kind of cooled off so we're gonna go move spots a little bit and see if we can pick up some uh a little bit bigger flatheads we're moving spots so we're just taking the bait putting him in his little pitcher there so he can stay alive and we don't have to unhook them and hook them again and that'll just transport them while we move spots we're gonna double our pleasure and double our fun with two little channel catfish on the rig right there sometimes you don't get the biggest bait that you want and two littles will out fish one big many times man they're gonna make a racket and struggle it's like putting two cats in a bag oh he's getting serious look at that he's got her bent down okay so this is a really this is a really common thing with live bait see how the hook point has stuck back into the fish there's no hook point so you can't catch a fish this way even if he swallows that hook it'll just pop right out to keep this one thing you can do to keep this from happening is putting a bait stop on your bait you cut a section of hot glue stick off and you feed it on to the hook point afterwards and it'll pin it in there stands for the camera oh come here feisty he's got a couple pounds on that other guy definitely a little bigger he bit the twins didn't he did didn't he oh he look at this i think that guy's guys met a fisherman before look at that that's catch and release that's why you do it now about a 9 10 pound flathead loads of fun ah there we go so we anchored up in a new spot and bam bam two decent hits and landed one in the boat much like it was the last last couple spots we got most our action right after anchoring so she goes to show you you know hopping around a spot to spot not being too patient often is the key and uh those double channel cats work just fine didn't they that's making some noise yeah man that's like trying to get my two boys to behave in the backseat of the car i just it's just not happening all right we sat here for a while but it got quiet on us so we're gonna pick up and move and try again all right every time you pop a line you lose a rig look at the end of your line and inspect it if it's a clean cut like this where it just ends that means the line got cut on something right or it broke if you pull it back and it's like got a curlicue in it or the line's all kinked up it means you're not failed well there we go guys we moved spots and bam got another hit so you know popping around it it really does help yes better let me clear this other outside rod okay he's in right in the top of his mouth you see the little scuff marks on the top of their head almost looks like like a mouth like there like i could show you pictures of fish even bigger than this with the perfect like moon shape of a flathead's bite mark there we go well it is late and we have had a great time we got three great catfish in the boat and had a lot of other action and bites but it is late and i've got to get home and get some sleep but if you guys want to come up here to pennsylvania and fish for flatheads on the susquehanna river check out joe's guide service at hookedoncatfishing.com and if you guys want to see more videos from the catfish and carp youtube channel don't forget to click subscribe we put out new videos every saturday morning

Channel: Catfish and Carp

Views: 590,357

Keywords: Fishing, fishing for catfish, how to catch catifsh, flatheads, flathead catfish, channel catfish, how to catch flathead catfish, summer time catfish, fishing for flathead catfish, fishing with live bait, fishing with live channel catfish, catching flatheads with live bait, catfishing with live bait, using catfish as bait, Fishing for spawning catfish, catfish bait, catfishing tips, catfishing techniques, fishing tips, catfishing, catching catfish, catching catfish with live bait

Id: 1DRer2lmUt0

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020