Big Catfish Tip is a series of tips and techniques for catching more catfish. Today’s tip comes from Glenn Flowers and it contradicts a long held belief about flatheads.
Butterflying For Flatheads
The biggest misconception in the flathead community is to always use live bait. While flatheads are top predators consuming anything that swims, crawls or flies, using live bait may not always be the answer. We have proven on many occasions that in the springtime and during times of high water flatheads will take cut bait, often times over live bait.
Whether it is bluegills, shad or skipjack the trick is to always use the head section. Start by cutting the tail off just behind the anal-fin and then butterfly your bait. Butterflying is where you take your fillet knife and basically reverse fillet the bait. Start from the tail and cut to the head. Stop your cut just under the pectoral fins. This process gives the bait a wing like appearance.
The reason for cut bait over live during the spring is that flatheads are still a bit lethargic after coming out of their winter phase so their sense of smell is more heightened than their sense for vibration. This is also true in periods of high muddy water.