Flathead Catfish Bait: Five Tips For Success

pilodictus oliverus better known as the flathead catfish if you fish for catfish then this fish is on your bucket list of catfish that you want to catch flathead catfish were originally native to the Mississippi River drainages East of the Continental Divide today in the contiguous United States outside of the extreme Northeast and a few Rocky Mountain States flathead catfish can be found just about everywhere while originally found in rivers with constant current today they are in many reservoirs and lakes and this lack of current gives them the opportunity to grow to massive proportions the flathead catfish is the second largest catfish in the United States with only the blue catfish growing larger while their overall numbers are less than the blue catfish they fight much harder pound per pound and that is probably why so many catfish Anglers want to catch these elusive fish if you're determined to catch one of these catfish one of the first things that you've got to figure out is what is the best catfish bait in this video I'm going to talk about some of the best choices for catfish bait how to rig it and where to throw it tip number one is to use some kind of fish from the waters that you fish in now if you watch any of my videos you've seen me catch hundreds if not thousands of catfish on chicken yes even flatheads now while I will continue to use this bait and I do believe that chicken breast is a great catfish bait for catching blues and channel catfish I really believe this bait is designed for targeting fish that are feeding on mussels and Aquatic snails yes we have caught flathead catfish on chicken and we'll continue to do so even some really big fish but if you are truly targeting flathead catfish I believe you need to go with some type of fish whether it be cut bait or lime now what about the manufactured baits the stink baits the pack baits the stuff you can buy that comes in a package that you see in a sporting goods store listen some people will catch some flathead catfish on this base but again these baits are not really designed for targeting flathead catfish I think you got a much better chance on these manufactured package baits catching a channel catfish or possibly a blue cat so you decided to use some fish from the waters that you're fishing do you use it live or do you cut it up this question gets brought up a lot when talking about targeting catfish especially flathead catfish and it leads to tip number two listen there are a lot of Anglers out there that swear by using live bait when targeting flatheads then you've got guys like myself that catch probably 85 to 90 percent of the flatheads that we catch on cut bait listen both of these baits will catch flathead catfish but here's a little tip to keep in mind when trying to make up whether you want to use live bait or cut bait I believe that live bait works better in rivers some place that has current I think that is why I catch so many fish on cup bait because I mainly fish lakes and reservoirs my theory is this live bait needs to be active for flatheads to hone in on it if you're in a lake or a reservoir a lot of times these live baits can simply sit on the bottom lay down behind a piece of wood or a little bit of cover and not be detected however when you put one of these live baits out into a river where there is some current they have to swim they have to move to stay stable and stay in place now if you're wanting to use live bait in still water in lakes and reservoirs I may have a way around that we'll talk about that in a minute when we get to presentations but I think cut bait works a lot better when you are in lakes and reservoirs and I think that live bait really performs better when you're Rivers so you made your mind up on whether you're using cut bait or live bait now you got to decide which fish you want to use now in my opinion we're legal I think it's hard to beat Sunfish also known as brim or bluegill or even crappie the smaller Sunfish Bram and bluegill are found in most all reservoirs lakes and rivers now like I said not every place is it legal to use brim or bluegill but if you can use them in the area that you're fishing it's hard to beat them as a live or cut bait another fish that's hard to beat anywhere in America is gizzard shed it gizzard Shad are available virtually every Predator fish will feed on them gizzard Shad 2 you can use live horse cut bait but I will say this Sunfish are a lot more Hardy and will stay alive longer than gizzard shed the one downside to using gizzard Chad is acquiring them they're basically two way ways to get them you either buy them from a live bait dealer or you have to throw a cast net to catch them they're not a fish that you can catch on rod and reel they won't hit conventional baits so throwing a cast net is the only way to get them while you're out on the water another great catfish bait that is only native to the Mississippi River drainages or skip jacked now these fish are a lot more difficult to keep alive after being caught but they make an excellent cut bait due to their oily nature now if you're planning on using any of these fish as live bait here's a tip to help you keep them alive a lot of people like to use aerators to try to put oxygen into the water but here's the deal you can only Force so much oxygen into your baiting ideally in a perfect world you need to keep constant fresh water flowing now that's not always possible if you're bank fishing and you've got a bucket set up so make sure you swap out the water regularly that is in your bait tank now if you're not keeping your fish alive put them on Ice immediately after they are caught the best thing to do is put them into a Ziploc bag and lay them on top of the ice inside of a cooler now for flathead catfish bait presentation is very important for live bait I like for the baits to be suspended having them suspended in the water column underneath the bobber makes it a lot harder for those little critters to hide from the flathead catfish that are pursuing them I prefer to have them two to three feet off the bottom so they're an easy target for flathead catfish that are cruising the Bottom now if you prefer to put your baits directly on the bottom there are two rigs that work great the first one is the Santee rig and it's kind of the hybrid version between being on the bottom and suspended while the rig maintains contact with the Bottom by Seeker a float on the leader line allows your bait to lift up off of the Bottom now I believe the Sandy rig works a lot better with cut bait and than it does with live bait using live bait on a Santee rig when you're anchored can kind of spin the rig into a mess so I think you're better off going with a Carolina rig or a fish finder rig these two rigs place the bait directly on the bottom these are also very affordable and easy rigs to tie keeping your rigs affordable is an important thing because you're going to lose some of them and that leads me to my next tip plan on losing gear flathead catfish love structure they love cover so you are going to be putting your baits in some areas that will probably have some snags no matter what you do sooner or later you're going to lose some rig sometimes multiple rigs in the same night so make sure you pack plenty of extra sinkers hooks swivels and leader material inevitably when pursuing flathead catfish that'll tackle leading monster from the deep will take his toll

Channel: Dieter Melhorn Fishing

Views: 31,697

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Id: yhHvoN8Yx9M

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 25 2023