Flathead question

[Will]

Fellows,

I don't post here often, but I think places like this are the best ways to get good advice. I've catfished all my life, but I've become particularly interested in catching trophy catfish recently, particularly with limblines. I have a small river that I fish that is a tributary of Kentucky Lake (which is full of flatheads) and I frequently catch channel cats over 10 pounds from it with live bream. The river is full of holes and snags and looks "flatheadish" but I have yet to catch one and have caught literally hundreds of big channels. I use nothing but live bait. I'd like to catch some flatheads, but I'm beginning to wonder if they even live in this river. Any advice?

[John]

Will, I'm in NE Oklahoma, and I catch alot of big flatheads in the early spring here. I limbline a flooded creek channel where it runs into the upper part of a lake. I start catching them about mid March, or whenever I can catch the perch which I use for bait.

Those big flats are preditors and they seem to like to hit the bait from underneath, so I don't have the bait fish very deep...a foot or two under the surface seems to work best.

The early spring here brings some thunderstorms and strong winds, and the flats are most active when there a storm coming in from the north. I watch the weather and if it looks like bad weather coming out of the north, I get those poles baited up and run em as soon as I can get there after the storm passes.