Finally, This Species Fell to the Fly Rod

That face right there is a face that I have wanted to see for years!  If truth be told, I've never even caught one on a rod and reel.  I hauled in a big old 45 pound biggun on the Missouri River a few years ago with a former student and his grandpa, but that was on a bank line.  Of course, I am talking about the flathead catfish.

What I am about to state is the honest truth, I swear!  On my way to Watkins Mill State Park on Sunday afternoon, I actually thought to myself that I had a chance to catch some catfish on a fly.  I learned from the aforementioned student and grandpa that flatheads become more active around the full moon.  It just so happens that we had a full moon recently.  Yep, I'm on that kind of nerd level where I monitor moon phases.  I even have a moon phase app on my phone.  Anyway, aside from the full moon, I recently learned that there are flathead catfish in the lake at Watkins Mill.  Those two things gave me a glimmer of hope, but that's all it was...hope.

Hope was extremely important on this particular day because I was fishing post front conditions.  A cold front moved through on Saturday with some rain.  Fishing on the front end of a cold front can be great!  My dad has always told me that the best time to catch catfish is when the water is rising.  Well, the water wasn't rising and the front has passed through.  This did NOT give me hope.  I'm also not very good at understanding fall patters for fish, so there's that too.

I managed to catch two fish on Sunday.  One was a small redear sunfish that Waylon yanked off the hook and dropped into the water before I could even touch it.  The second fish was a dream come true though!  I had seen small shad jumping in the shallows and had seen some baitfish getting chased so throwing a tandem bugger rig made sense.  The water was murky so I threw an olive one to match the water and a white one to match the hatch.  

The fish hit the white wooly like a freight train.  I was throwing my flies on a four weight and I quickly realized that this was not a bluegill or redear.  When I finally got the fish to the surface, I just about came unglued.  If you would like to see video footage, just check out the YouTube channel or TikTok account.  I recognized it right off the bat but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that a green and black fish with whiskers in Missouri is a flathead.  

This fish is such a cool critter.  The shape of the body, the coloring on a juvenile, and the fin proportions are unlike anything else that swims in North America.  Alright, fine, it's a catfish but the details set it apart from blues and channels.  Anyway, I really appreciated catching this rare (to me) and unique fish that I had never caught on a fly before.  Now it's time to move onto my next goal.  I need to catch a gar!