Fishin' The Lower Flint

Hi Ya'all! My bro, Gene, and I went up to the Flint River below Bainbridge, Ga., early this morning to try and get some flatheads. We launched the boat at daylight (Gene had already caught our bream up at the "farm" yesterday afternoon). So, we had the right bait, eh. They wern't havin' any of our live bream even though we drifted and anchored in and around some pretty deep holes and runs (35-50 feet) along certain sections of the river channel. We tried drifting slip float rigs and bouncing bottom rigs close to the structures...there are some limestone rocky uneven bottom features in a couple of our deeper holes. The river was clean looking, but there was no current. I wonder if that had the bite off? The moon was full last night, too. That could have had them feeding all night and full up this morning, you know. We put the boat on the trailer around 10 a.m. and took off up the river above Bainbridge to check out a couple of other landings where my fish biologist contact with DNR told me to look. One of the upper landings looked beautiful. Water was a pretty blue-green and the river was flowing. We talked to an elderly fisherman and his wife who were putting in at the landing and was told that they had caught a 50-pounder flathead just the other night up there! Yes, back to the books to study up on some references for fishing "sand bars" - which the fella told us to try up the river a mile or so. I tell ya, some times you have to expend the gas and the time to search out these "unknown" places to try for the next time. All in all, we had a great time. Don't need to catch fish to enjoy the day with a good partner. Say, isn't that why we call it "fishing, instead of catching"? Yes sir.

I aint sure about drifting for flatheads during the day, Cactus bob and I would set up on a hole during the day and put those gills on the bottom, we pulled two out of that hole I believe . Flatheads are primarily nocturnal, small ones can be caught during the day best I can tell, and I am far from expert. Bigguns come at night, and seems like everything I read about folks who have caught the bigguns it tends to be somewhere around 12-4am. Just my own conclusion, not a fact of any sort. I am still waiting on the biggun.

Gosh darn it - I was hoping (against hope) the we would NOT have to fish at night to catch biggin's...just my luck. Well, you are far and away a better fisherman for these flatties than I am, so IF we have to catch the big ones = then, night time it will be (after we catch some smaller ones to get our confidence levels up a bit).

There are a lot of areas left for us to explore down here in my region (the Flint River system out of south Georgia) and that requires numerous trips during the day to find all the "sweet spots" before we go crashing around in the darkness, that's for sure (I know better than to fly off down some new area without day time explorations).

I surely wish some of you fellas were around here to help us out. We could have a pretty good time getting together and fishing for all these fat flatheads - nevermind all the channel and blue cats that are in these rivers and lakes down here out of Tallahassee area. If any of ya'all take a notion let's set up a trip and you come on down to get some of our catfishin'! I know I'm new to this group, but fishin' is fishin' and I darn well am dedicated to chasing these catfish from here on out! Ya'all let me know something soon, eh?

Thats good advice to yourself about checkin it out during the day, I like to get out a couple hours at least to find the stump fields before dark, after dark, I just put along until I hit the deep water then just run it fast enough to stay on plane. Save alot of fuel that way too. Im gonna throw frogs at em tonight an see what happens. along with gills and worms if I have too............LMAO

That's a new one, Mac - frogs for bait. I've read about using them but have never done it for catfish. Now for bass, well, yes sir, there has been a many hapless frog disappear into a #2 washtub boil around some lilly pads! Educate me - how do you go about using frogs for catfish bait? What kind of frogs (there are a few species I know of)...I'de rather not waste good bullfrog legs on catfish - too yummy for my tummy. Early this spring, Gene & I found a really good catfish pattern using big pond worms (nightcrawlers) and cut shad baits under a shallow cork around standing timber in 6-feet of water. Weehoo, we caught some channels up to 8#'s or better in a few trips before the heat moved in and scattered the kittys elsewhere...that was out in Lake Seminole (where the Flint River that we are fishing now runs into it). Didn't find any flatheads among the sticks, but we did catch a few "speckled" cats - sort of like a brown bullhead kitty - while wearing out the big channel cats. See, I know a little about fishing that standing timber stuff, anyway.

I didnt catch those frogs, little buggers went in the rocks when I got to em........... I just fish em on a slip bobber like I do gills.