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Flathead Catfish
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Today, in a time when more and more anglers are seeking greater thrills and bigger fish, the old-time catters are being joined by increasing numbers of fishermen who also seek the flathead. After decades of being overlooked, the flathead is suddenly “in.”
Common Names – Among those commonly heard are yellow cat, shovelhead, mud cat, tabby cat, Morgan cat, appaloosa cat, appaluchion, johnnie cat, goujon, Opelousas cat, Op cat, bashaw, Russian cat, granny cat, pied cat, flatbelly and Mississippi cat.
Description – The flathead catfish is a brute of a fish, muscular and streamlined, but ugly by all accepted standards. The back and sides are brownish to yellowish, with varying degrees of mottling. The belly is a light yellow to creamy white. Its head is broad and flattened, hence its name. Flatheads have a squarish tail and a lower jaw that protrudes beyond the upper. Young fish may be confused with bullheads, but the tooth pad of a flathead extends back into the mouth at each end.
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| Range – Flatheads are widespread, another factor heightening their popularity. They inhabit waters from Minnesota south into Alabama, Texas and Mexico, and east to Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They have also been introduced in many waters west of the Rocky Mountains. |
Size – Certainly, part of the flathead’s appeal stems from its immense size. Five, ten, even twenty-pounders are common, and in prime waters, trophy status is granted only to those exceeding 50 or 60 pounds. The world rod-and-reel record from Elk City Reservoir in Kansas stands at 123 pounds, but flatheads nearly 5 feet long weighing almost 140 pounds have been caught commercially in recent times. In the fresh waters of North America, they are exceeded in size only by blue catfish, white sturgeon and alligator gar.
Habitat – Flatheads are primarily fish of large rivers and impoundments and are seldom found in creeks, ponds and small lakes. Adults live in deep, sluggish pools near submerged logs, piles of driftwood, undercut banks or other cover. They prefer hard sand or gravel bottoms, and are rarely found in areas with a soft bottom. At night, they move from deeper water to shallows to feed. They are solitary fish, and a single spot of cover usually yields only one, at most two or three, adult fish.
Food Habits – Though sometimes taken during daylight hours – especially during overcast or rainy periods or when water is highly colored – flatheads, like all catfish, are primarily nocturnal feeders. Big flatheads scavenge very little and are highly efficient predators, preferring live food, especially fish and crayfish. They rarely are caught using chicken liver, stinkbaits and other dead, malodorous allurements that may tempt blue and channel catfish.
A study conducted in Georgia’s Flint River bears this out. Researchers examined stomach contents of flathead catfish from the river. They found flatheads less than 12 inches long fed primarily on invertebrates, mostly crayfish. Flatheads between 12 and 24 inches subsisted almost entirely on a diet of crayfish. In flatheads greater than 24 inches, the diet was 96 percent fish by weight, primarily gizzard shad, sunfish, suckers and other catfish.
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Age & Growth – Flatheads grow fast, adding weight quicker than any other North American gamefish with the possible exception of common carp and grass carp. The fastest growth spurt typically occurs between ages 3 and 8 when they commonly add 2 to 5 pounds per year. Even big flats grow fast, however, with tag returns indicating increases of more than 10 pounds annually in some cases. In some southern rivers and reservoirs, flatheads have reached 30 pounds in less than 10 years. They are known to live up to 20 years.
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Typical Weight (pounds) at Various Lengths (inches)
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Length
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20 |
25 |
30 |
35 |
40 |
45 |
50 |
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Weight
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3.4 |
6.7 |
12.1 |
20.0 |
30.2 |
51.3 |
70.2 |
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Typical Length (inches) at Various Ages
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Age
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1 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
7 |
9 |
11 |
13 |
15 |
| North |
7.5 |
10.9 |
14.8 |
19.3 |
23.9 |
28.0 |
35.5 |
37.0 |
40.0 |
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South
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- |
16.3 |
24.3 |
27.7 |
34.7 |
36.3 |
40.4 |
44.2 |
46.3 |
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Reproduction – Spawning habits are similar to those of the channel cat. Adult’s excavate a saucer-shaped depression in a natural cavity. Thousands of eggs are laid in a compact yellow mass. The male guards the nest, agitating the eggs by fin movements to keep silt off the eggs and provide oxygen. The young form a tight school for a few days after hatching and then disperse to assume a solitary life. Spawning begins when the water temperature is between 70º and 80ºF.
Flatheads have relatively low reproductive potential and are much slower to mature compared to other catfish. A female is usually 4 to 6 years old when mature and produces only about 1,000 eggs per pound of body weight. Channel and blue cats mature in 2 to 3 years and produce 3,000 to 4,000 eggs per pound of body weight.
Popularity – Despite its lack of beauty, the flathead draws a passionate cadre of fans. Walk into a bait shop beside prime flathead waters, and you’ll see their faded photos tacked to the wall, photos of leathery men grinning and grunting as they strain to hoist a 40-, 50- or 60-pound flat up before the camera, white-knuckled hands gripping the gill plates.
Were you to talk with the fishermen in those photos, they would tell you, in their own words, that flatheads possess an intrinsic mesmerism. Catch one, regardless of the method – on rod-and-reel, a trotline, a limbline or yanked from an underwater hidey-hole with your bare hands – and you become, forevermore, a flathead fan.
Blue-ribbon eating quality is another flathead hallmark. The flesh of even large flatheads is firm, white, flaky and, when properly prepared, absolutely delicious. They support a thriving commercial fishery in parts of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri river drainages, and one heavy fish may feed a hungry family for weeks.
Best of all, the flathead catfish is an incomparable fighter. It is a bullish battler, long on sullen anger and short on hysteria.
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Flathead Introductions, Bad & Good
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The flathead’s big mouth and gluttonous appetite sometimes get it in trouble. In some rivers where flatheads have been introduced, they are despised by sunfish anglers who rightfully blame them for declines in redbreast and bluegill populations. Some state fisheries agencies have responded with eradication programs, including legalization of commercial fishing with low-voltage electrofishing rigs. (Catfish fans, on the other hand, often consider flathead predation of sunfish a favorable food conversion.)
In other waters, flatheads are intentionally stocked by fisheries biologists hoping to thin stunted sunfish and bullheads. In Prairie Rose Lake in Iowa, for example, an overabundant bullhead population had decreased by 60 percent 6 years after flatheads were introduced. As a result, bullheads, which are popular Iowa gamefish, increased in both length and weight, and populations of bluegills and crappie showed improvements in growth and significant increases in numbers.
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OhioGameFishing.Com
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Ohio's
Complete
Anglers Resource
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Do Your Part
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Do you love huge catfish?
Then become part of something special
by clicking below to join for free the
Catfish Anglers Society
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