# Fall Flathead Patterns



## ghillyguy

I like to flathead fish in mosquito lake. I have noticed that in the spring, they tend to bite about an hour after sunset. As the water temperatures increased, the bite moved later and later (relative to sunset). By peak water temp, the flatheads were biting about midnight for me. Lately, the channel cats have been getting to my bait quicker than the flatties. Does anyone know or have a theory about the fall/early winter habits of flatheads in lakes? Not sure if I need to change up my strategy or not.


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## ducky152000

From late April to early may, 95% of the flathead I catch are between 3 and sunset, once waters hit mid 60s usualy mid may I start to catch flathead into the nite. Now that waters are cooling we tend to catch fish a few hours before dark, and throughout the nite. I feel this time of year a flathead will bite anytime they have prey in front of them. They need to build up as much fat and energy to survive the winter. I like to go to long shallow bays, and start my search for a fall spot by watching the depth finder once my depth finder hits 8 foot I look for the closet point. Fish that point and hopefully there will be flathead using it as a stopping/feeding point before there migration to there wintering holes, (usualy around the dam,) in years of fishing you learn what points flathead like to stop at. Hope this helps.


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## ghillyguy

Thanks! Everything helps. I'm hoping I can get out a few more times before I'm deer hunting every weekend and the ice forms.


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## katfish

ghillyguy

One of the most frustrating and fascinating things about
flathead is that they are unpredictable for the most part.

So many variables dictate where they locate and when they
feed that predicting behavior at any time is very difficult.
I have been trying to understand what triggers feeding
for years with little success.

To add to my confusion, flathead in different waterways
act and react differently. Individual fish have some tendencies
we can predict and others that are totally different from
other flathead.

Mostly when we get a hot streak and think we have a 
pattern figured out, something changes and we go weeks 
without a run.

This year I stayed with my standard plan to fish hard and
patiently wait out the flathead. One of my favorite lakes
had a severe shift in flathead locations. I can only guess 
at the cause and hope conditions change. Other lakes stayed more predictable but were still tough this year.

I believe the more guys flathead fish the more questions they have
about locations, tactics, and baits. Every trip seems to have different
situations and the variables are so great we can only imagine part of them
and try to adapt.


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## ghillyguy

I went out Saturday and only caught a 29" channel(9.4lbs). That was the only bite. Only out from 7 to 11pm though. Bait was difficult to catch


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## M.Magis

Often there are days where everyone from all over the state catches flatheads, Sat the 22nd seemed to be one of them. Then there are days where it seems like no one could catch a flathead. Sat the 29th seemed to be one of those nights. I&#8217;ve only seen one report of anyone catching a flathead Sat night. I can&#8217;t offer much input as to what causes some nights to be so good and others so bad, if I could I&#8217;d never get skunked.  But when targeting flatheads, one just has to accept the idea of getting skunked. When targeting trophy flatheads, we get skunked more often than not. Far more often. 

And you're right, bait is getting very hard to get.


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## katfish

I have caught more fish Ohio Channel cats on flathead baits this year
than I have flathead.










The last time I saw channel cats this aggressive was when they dropped Salt Fork to work on the dam.


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