Keeping Pace During Early Season

I like Stange’s thoughts on the value of cutbait early on. It’s a more subtle presentation compared to live baitfish, and might be more attractive to a cold-water flathead that’s not energetically pumped up to overtake a big lively baitfish. Cutbait also probably emits more scent and flavor into the water than a livebait, and it’s probably just as important in cold water to rebait with fresh cutbait often.

Darrel Carter from Elk Point, South Dakota, fishes U.S. C.A.T.S. tournaments and used to think flatheads didn’t feed in water under 50F. Then he started fishing a U.S. C.A.T.S. tournament on the Ohio River held in late February or early March each year. “The last six years I’ve fished that event the water was always 43F to 47F,” Carter says. “Every year I caught at least one flathead from deeper water on cutbait and saw other ones weighed in.

“Back home, I fish the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers. I start early in the year fishing cutbait in the main channel of the Missouri and catch flatheads, often when I’m targeting channel cats. In April, I catch flatheads and channels on cutbait in the lower 2 miles of the Big Sioux where it flows into the Missouri. By prespawn, I’m fishing about 10 miles up the Sioux, catching about a 50:50 ratio of flatheads and channels on cutbait around snags.”

Staying on top of early flatheads is an exercise in tracking water conditions and weather events. A water thermometer might be your best tool to decipher the changing patterns of the season. Early on when it’s cold, focus on areas around known wintering holes. If you don’t make contact, flatheads are probably on the move, so go to plan B and start covering water, fishing current breaks where migrating flatheads might stop to rest.

The water’s still on the cold side, so it’s probably best to sit on a spot a bit longer than you would in the latter part of the Prespawn Period. If a flathead’s there it’ll probably take advantage of the opportunity to feed because it’s expending a lot of energy to get to where it’s going. In the meantime, a feeding fish might pass through while your bait’s down there working. Another strategy is to set up in an area that looks like it serves as a funnel for traveling flatheads. It might be a constricted channel, or the slack side of a current seam, or something that looks like it gives you a better shot at fish moving through.

If a cold front drops the water temperature, go back to spots that have characteristics of a good wintering hole. When warming weather stirs things up, it’s probably time to go back to plan B and search for moving and resting fish or wait it out at funnel areas.

By mid-May and into June Up North, and from April into May farther South, with water temperatures breaching 60F, flatheads are settling into river reaches where they’ll eventually spawn, although settled is a relative term compared to the migration stint of the Spring Coldwater Period. They’re still moving, hopscotching among spots like big snags and rockpiles, to feed and scout out spawning areas. But metabolism’s ramped up, flatheads are feeding heavily, and the fishing’s as good as it gets.