8/10: Flathead Fresh off Spawn

Late Thursday night Russ sent me a text that informed me that he would have the weekend off of work, which meant that he was ready to head out and fish. At this point I had already made plans Saturday to float a section of the Great Miami River with a handful of friends from up north. After a half a dozen text messages back and forth, Russ and I had decided to fish a section of river for flathead catfish Friday night. This gave me the opportunity to fish both Friday with Russ and Saturday with my other friends. Although this all hinged on our trip Friday night, if it was a bust we could leave early and I would be able to head up and fish with everyone Saturday.

Friday morning Russ got off work and went out to gather a few dozen bluegill for bait. At 10am he called to let me know that he had more bluegill than we could use (Approximately 4 dozen), and that he was going to take a nap before our trip. At 3pm I locked the gates at work and made my way home. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, threw a few waters in the car, swapped out my bass gear for my catfish gear, loaded up my kayak, and hit the road. Our trip began a little bumpy, literally, as I broke 2 welds on my kayak trailer as we were heading down a rather rough dirt road. Two of the welds at the frame of the trailer had prevented the metal tubing from flexing and absorbing some of the shock that the trenches and pot holes put on the kayak trailer and they snapped. After unloading all of our gear and dragging our kayaks down to the water Russ informed me that he had forgot to load his paddle into my car.  I looked over to Russ and told him that we were going to have a good trip, he then raised his head and looked at me like I was crazy. I then explained to him that the trips that start out like this, the ones that make you wanna pack up and head back home, often make for the best trips of the year. He then responded, "What do you mean, all of my trips start like this." We both got a pretty good laugh out of the situation and continued to unload our gear.

Typical spot for big cats.....wood and deep water.

We got on the water around six and began scouting the river. I found a place to anchor near a pretty prominent current seam in deep water. I tossed out two rods with cut bluegill and waited to see if any catfish were feeding during the day.  Russ on the other hand, had his eye on other fish such as buffalo and gar. He began paddling along the banks looking for surface activity. In this particular section of river the buffalo population is insane, its nothing out of the ordinary to pull up to a small log jam that has trapped floating scum and see twenty buffalo sucking the scum off of the surface of the water. Russ has perfected a method of landing these surface feeding buffalo. A floating jig head tipped with a piece of night crawler laid gently in the pocket of floating foam works wonders for them. After a couple of hours Russ found what he was looking for.

 While paddling from spot to spot I had spotted a carp feeding beside the buffalo that would have went well over 20lbs, my attention then shifted from cats to buffalo as well. We worked the floating scum mats until dark and then we switched our attention back to catfish. Russ tossed out a live bluegill on one rod and a cut bluegill head on his other. Within 30 minutes he had the first flathead of the night, a 28"er that fell for the bluegill head. After that we sat around for another hour before pulling anchor and heading downstream to the next spot.

I found a nice log jam setting in 10 feet of water but there was nothing near it to tie off to, so I paddled 20 yards upstream of it and threw my anchor onto the bank and began tossing my rods out. ( I rarely, if ever, drop my anchor in the water. Its much safer and more stable to anchor on logs, the bank, etc.) Thirty minutes later the rod I had baited with a cut bluegill head began to get a bite. The clicker mechanism on my reel began to sound as the fish began to take line. I disengaged the clicker and engaged the drive on the reel. I leaned forward and allowed the fish to tighten up the line and then I set a solid hook. The fish didn't take drag, but it wasn't letting me take in line either. A minute later I brought him to up to the kayak and landed my first fish of the night, a 28" flathead. From a quick look at its head size compared to its body size I discovered that this was a male flathead. Males have larger heads than the females, most of the time their head (gill plate to the bottom lip) is wider that the rest of the body, whereas female flathead have smaller heads and larger bodies. This male had spots and bruises all over him from spawn, which told me that Russ and I had timed this trip just right. 

Spawning marks on his head and back.

I waited another 45 minutes in this spot before heading downstream 30 yards and repositioning within the log jam. I tossed a live blugill near the bank and a blugill head on the outside of the log jam. Less than fifteen minutes later my clicker began to roll once again on my outside rod. I disengaged the clicker, engaged the reel, and set the hook. This fish felt strong, very strong. I'd gain a few yards of line and then he'd take it right back. Once I got it to the kayak I realized that this fish was no where near the size that I thought it was, and it wasn't a flathead either. After 3 minutes of trying to land the channel cat by hand I pulled out the net and ended the battle. It went just shy of 28", and I'm guessing it to be in the 8-10lb range...my biggest channel catfish from a kayak to date. 

Russ heard all the commotion and paddled over to see what was going on, since he was already by my side he took a picture for me. Before he could even get re-anchored downstream my second rod began to go off. It was the first fish of the night to come off of a live bluegill, a pretty solid 29" flathead with a neat coloration. This female was in much better shape than the small male that I had caught earlier in the night.

Very cool looking female flathead. Rather free of spawn marks.

In less than an hour I had landed 3 fish, even though they weren't very big I was having a blast. Russ and I paddled downstream and made our one and only portage of the trip. We then began looking for our next spot to fish. About 100 yards downstream from our portage we found a log jam in 8 feet of water, but the current was ripping through too fast for comfort. Twenty minutes later Russ and I dropped anchor near wood that appeared to be rather new to the river. (At-least we had never seen it before.) About thirty minutes after anchoring I hear something massive splash near the surface by Russ. My initial thought was that Russ had a giant hooked. A few seconds later I hear another splash, this time it was even closer to Russ' kayak. His head lamp quickly turned on and I herd rods banging around and Russ mumbling. A few minutes later I hear Russ paddling up the middle of the river. I yelled out and asked him how big it was and he replied, "Stupid thing tried to kill me." I was confused so I continued to ask questions. It turns out that the splashes I had heard weren't a fish at all, rather a very big angry beaver. Russ told me that after the second splash he pulled his anchor so quick that he forgot about having his rods out. He then went on to describe the hissing and grunting noises that the beaver was making. Now Russ isn't one to fear much of anything, sometimes I believe he doesn't even fear his own death but this beaver put the fear into Russ. I hadn't seen him this shook up before. I asked him if he wanted to paddle down the river and look for a new spot, away from the beaver, and without hesitation he said yes.

Around 2am we anchored on a few fallen trees and waited to hear out bait clickers. Once again my outside rod (bluegill head) began to click. I set the hook and landed another small flathead. At this point I was on pace to catch the most flathead I had ever caught in one trip. (4)

This little female had a few bruises on her head from spawning, but nothing too serious. I snapped a few pictures, released the fish, rebated, and casted back out to the outside of the log jam. Less than twenty minutes later that same rod began to click. This female flathead was quite a bit smaller than the other ones but it helped me tie my personal best for most flatheads in one night.  Once again she was rather free of bruises and spawn marks. At this point I had landed 3 female and 1 male flathead, which led me to believe that there are still a few males guarding nests.

Before I could rebait my rod and get it back into the water, my rod with a live bluegill began to run. After a brief battle I brought the 28" bruiser into the yak. This male flathead was two to three times fatter than any fish I had landed all day, it was probably the most beat up too!

Male Flathead....head is much larger than the rest of its body.

Two hours later I land yet another flathead on live bluegill, a thick 28"er.

At this point I was running low on bait and staying awake was becoming more challenging by the second. If the fish hadn't been biting I would have surely been sleeping in my bed at this point. My phone had died somewhere around midnight so I really had no idea what time it had gotten to be, until Russ came paddling upstream and asked me if I knew what time it was. I replied, "No, Why? He then informed me that it was after 4am and that he needed to be home by 7am to watch his kids. At this point I realized that fishing with the guys up north in a few hours wasn't a possibility. Russ had worked a 10 hours shift Thursday night into Friday morning, caught bait till 10am, and then slept for 3 hours before putting in 11 hours on the river. I had gotten up at 6 am, worked 8 hours, and then put 11 hours in on the river. The fish were biting, but it was time for us start heading downstream. We had a 30 minute paddle to the take out location, 20 minute drive to get our second vehicle at the launch location, and another 30 minutes of loading our gear up. On my way home the alarm that I had set for my previously planned fishing trip Saturday went off. I just looked at my cell phone and laughed, those guys where just going to have to fish without me. 

All in all we had a pretty good trip.

Just some thoughts out loud here: 
 I landed 6 flathead and 1 channel cat. Most of the flathead came off of cut bluegill head on the outside of log jams. The bigger fish however, came off of live bluegill near the bank. Most of the flathead were also female. This leads me to believe that there are still a few larger males guarding nests in the log jams, which is forcing the smaller fish to the outside of the log jams. The next few weeks should produced some of the most exciting flathead fishing of the year.