Flint River Kitty's (and bream)
Posted: May 29th, 2008, 7:49 am
Gene and I had a great day initiating our Flathead Catfish careers yesterday. By the way, many thanks to the two fellas that responded to my query about fishing for flatheads! 
We put in @ Horseshoe Bend Landing about 7:30 a.m., the air temperature was around a cool mid-60's degrees, with clear skies, the water temperature in the 70's (according to Gene's chart recorder), and we were off like a rocket to find some places to catch bream for bait. What we found was pure joy. A major Mayfly hatch (Genus Hexagenia according to my entomologist fishing partner) of the large (size #8-10 dry fly matches for you fly fishermen), dark grey specimens was happening. The bream were greedy towards any bait that hit the water - in our case, worms! 
After a couple of hours spent sorting through multiple sizes of bream (we only wanted the smaller 2-3 finger sized ones for this trip as we did not have "Grouper tackle" with us) our bait catching was completed. Gene had left his "bait bucket" at home, so we improvised my 48 qt. ice chest and a bubbler device for the live bait well. It proved to be most superior, rather than the limited spaces of a bait bucket. We went over to a spot up the river to some really deep water (40+ feet) that we found with irregular bottom made up of Limestone rock outcropping (we were advised by a DNR Biologist I called early on this week to look for "rocky and woody bottom in deep water"). Gene immediately hooked up (within 5-minutes of anchoring) on a fat #10 Flathead in that deep hole. The fat cat pounced on his baby bream soaking along the bottom down deep and produced a good fight on medium equipment - meaning #25 test line, 2-oz sinker, and a big, 5/0 bait hook. Oh yeah, we discovered that one had better have at least 100-feet of anchor rope for both fore and aft locations - sort of like offshore grouper fishing! Later on I managed to catch a 5-pound Flathead on a suspended cork rig (this technique uses a slip knot so you can adjust the big bobber for any depth). We observed that the "bite" from these Flatheads are definately "softer" than those experienced with the Channel or Blue cats - the latter just hit the baits running and speed up (sort of like the mackerel).
We experimented with Drift fishing to locate the kitty's, but anchoring was the best tactic. We lost several rigs to the bottom (of course - like offshore fishing), but that was to be expected. Along the way, Gene & I tried several other type baits (stinky Dip bait, big worms, cut bait) and only caught a few small Channel cats. During the heat of the day (11 a.m -5 p.m.) we fished for baby bass and bream on ultralight tackle, tossing small plugs around the shorelines - it was really hot (90+), but a kindly 10 MPH breeze kept the "sweat bees" off our brows for the most part.
We ended the trip a much more educated pair of catfishermen about 7:30 p.m. and returned to Tally town by dark! No doubt we will try this sport again, but with some modifications to our tactics and outfits, for sure. There are countless deep holes and channels along this portion of the Flint River, as we discovered during our surveilance yesterday. In fact, the areas we downloaded into my GPS bears several more trips, of a certainty.
You are absolutley correct, bman - I need to take some pics and learn how to transcribe them onto this site...I'm sick of not being able to do that technique. As soon as I can afford the camera and learn how to post the pics, it will be done, sir! 
Thanks, FRP - I sent you a pm! I will take any advice offered as we are in our infancy on this deal. But, we do have a fast learning curve!