Most will never understand this concept. But how could they? Such a large percentage of the world’s population today lives day to day without passion, or at least without pursuing the passions that they may have had at some point. There are excuses, reasoning, even common sense that turn most away as they continue on without any great pursuit. True, die hard trophy catfishermen are a rare kind. “You fish all night, X amount of nights every year, just to catch a fish you’re going to immediately let go?!” I’ve heard it before, countless times. The answer? Yes. I’d explain further but they won’t get it and I don’t care to waste my time trying to make them. It’s truly an addiction and unless you’re part of it, no explanation can justify these means. This may sound cliché, but it’s more than fishing. It always has been. Anyone can fish. Hell, you’ve got to be a decent stick just to consistently catch your bait trip after trip. But it takes more than that to consistently tame the largest and most misunderstood fish swimming in our water.
Timing. Timing is everything here. Radio telemetry studies have shown that lake flatheads are sometimes very inactive. It can vary throughout the season but once settled into their post spawn routine, these studies have shown that large adult flatheads may only roam to feed one night out of 14 consecutive nights. How’s that for odds? Anyone with their chicken liver and spincast reel can get lucky now and then, but it’s a widely held opinion that consistently catching trophy flatheads in freshwater lakes is one of the hardest challenges in freshwater fishing. So you’ve put in the time to narrow down a potentially productive area to fish. A likely path of travel that one of these giants MIGHT use to get from A to B while foraging. You pack your gear (you’ve acquired quite a bit by now), fuel the boat, pack food and drinks, buy bait to catch bait, spend an entire afternoon (or several leading up to a night of fishing) gathering other live fish for bait, all in hopes that the one night you’ve chosen to fish is the night Mr. Lowjow decides to get off of his butt and feed. That amount of work for a 7% chance? Yes, every damn time.
Now, there are factors that may (or may not) increase your likelihood of engaging them on an active night. Weather patterns, lake level, time of year, baitfish activity, water temperature fluctuations, moon phase…I could go on. Even then, it’s speculation. The endless combinations of these factors are what keep us awake at night, along with the ultimate fear that you may be fishing the wrong area. The best location on any given lake fished on the wrong night is still a blank, as is the wrong spot on a great night.
Fishless nights are an accepted part of this game, though. Most agree that if you’re finding a solid fish every 3 or 4 trips (and yes, that’s entire nights spent fishing) then you’re doing very well. Dry spells are common and painful, some lasting quite a while. Some of the best known flathead fishermen around will go 15-20 trips without a decent adult fish on occasion. They test your will and crush your confidence. You’ll question everything you thought you knew, and every careful note you’ve taken over years of experimentation. But you can’t quit. The only way to end the streak is to keep fishing. You keep telling yourself that you’re in this game because you love it. You go because it’s fun and you live like a gorilla soldier in the bush for countless nights because you enjoy it. That’s true, to a point. But there’s more to it. You can’t let the obsession defeat you. You hate to lose. You’ve come this far and you won’t let a few fishless nights keep you from realizing your goal. Or weeks, or a month…
But then, it happens. You’re rousted from your sleepy daze by the steady humming of a reel slowly being stripped of its line. You know what’s there. You’ve been at this long enough to know it’s not another channel cat, or a turtle lumbering off with a bait that’s expired too soon. You creep over to the rod in total silence/darkness, slip off the clicker and feel the line paying out under your thumb. Thousands of thoughts cross your mind in a single blink of an eye as you engage the reel and wait for the slow pull. The line comes tights and you drill him. The rod bows hard against the angry brick wall shaking his damn head in a rage somewhere out there in the dark. Then, your line starts to peel again, this time against the drag. How big is it? Can I stop it? Is he hooked well or skin hooked in the roof of the mouth, again…? He slows as you gain line and work him closer to your position with your knees shaking thinking about how you’re going to fit this leviathan in your already oversized landing net. After several more runs and angry, bull dogging head shakes, he’s there. You slide the net out in front of you and drag ol’ grand daddy funk-mouth into the net that’s sat dry in the bushes for too many nights before. It’s done. Season justified. Crazy obsessive preparation, lack of sleep, ass busting totally justified. So now what? Here you are standing with your prize at your feet, finally defeated. He hangs in the sling as the scales tip to new numbers you may never have seen before while chasing a freshwater fish. You get your grips and grins with the big guy, and then he’s gone. As any good cat man knows, catch and release angling is the only way to ensure that our sport will live on to any degree. The fish that’s kept you awake for nights in a row, season after season, was there and gone in a few minutes and is already back to sulking at the bottom of that muddy water you’ve spent your summer living on.
Was it worth it? If you’re still reading this babble, the answer is most likely yes. You’ll be back, fresh notes in the notebook, and a new PB to break. And you will, eventually. You just have to keep fishing, right? That’s the funny thing about passions. They never stop. Each goal accomplished is simply another goal set. The bar is higher now but you wouldn’t have it any other way. Most will see your photo hanging on some bait shop wall or on an online forum and think “wow I’d love to catch a fish like that some day,” never realizing how much is behind that simple picture. And that’s just fine. If they want it bad enough, they’ll learn to make it happen. “Let each man find his own way to flatheads” is the best way I’ve heard this put, as quoted in an In-fisherman publication by an elderly die-hard that has since passed on having landed the world record flathead more than once. It’s been a slow spring season for our group, with small fish and fishless nights starting to pile up. But we’ll be back. We’ll always be back. This is as much a part of us as anything else and there is no “quit” in our vocabulary. Keep the faith boys, it WILL happen. Won’t it?
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