NE Flathead Fishing

[starcraft36]

I have only ever caught 1 flathead in my life and it was by accident. I caught a small 3-5 lber channel catfishing one night on chicken liver

I would love to try and catch some, just never knew of a good place to go up here in the Northeast or how to fish for them. I live in Ashtabula county in Rock Creek. As far as rivers, I primarily fish the Grand and Chagrin rivers and lakes I mostly fish Erie, Pymatuning, Salt Fork, or farm ponds.

Any ideas on where to go and then what set up to use for them?

[Smoothkip]

Salt Fork holds a lot of big Flatheads. Id def use live bait, Theres an article Catfishrollo wrote that would def help you on locations
catfishfreaks.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=articles&action=display&thread=861

[rcbbracing]

I sent ya a p.m. starcraft...kip is right salt fork would be an amazing place to start looking!

[starcraft36]

Thanks for the post Kip, solid read. I guess the follow up question would be, what type of live bait is best? chubs, bluegills, goldfish. shad, etc? And when you put them under a float, what is typically the depth you will set them under the bobber? I am sure it depends on depth, but just a rough idea, not sure how far a flathead will come up to feed.

RCB- thanks for the PM, look forward to your response!

[Smoothkip]

Seems like most of the successful lake fisherman that I know usually use Gills, goldfish and live Shad for bait.

[Seanstone]

We typically set our floats 3-4 feet off of bottom. Just enough to keep it out of the snags we fish or weeds on bottom, and still be close enough to send good vibrations down to the flatties. ;D . I have caught flatheads as much as 10' off of bottom though. My pb came off of a float set at 8' deep in which I casted into 10' of water, the wind pushed it out into 20' of water and I got tired of recasting so I let it go. Sure enough it took off. Floats have produced way more fish than any other method we use, but when they snag up and you have to retie it gets annoying. And it costs like 4 bucks a snag, whereas using a slip sinker rig on bottom costs a little more than a dollar. Last year we got away from using floats, but I plan to use a lot more this season.

Floats work great in slack water or in lakes, when facing a little current it can be difficult to use, but not impossible. It helps to have a boat in those situations though.