"From May until late September, big flatheads follow a pretty strict pattern. "I can catch flatheads day or night because I target them in their sanctuaries, not just when they're feeding," he says. His home water is the Rock River in northern Illinois, where he guides clients to flatheads in the 30- to 50-pound-plus range.
My most recent conversation about precision presentations was with catfish guide Denny Halgren of Dixon, Illinois. "But you catch more and bigger fish if you put your bait right on the end of their nose." That was my first lesson in precision catfish bait placement. Catfish eventually come to your bait if you just toss it out there." He set the hook on another 3-pounder. "Nothing," he said, carefully lifting his rod tip and eyeing his line as it slowly swirled out of the eddy. Swallowing my pride, I reeled in and trudged up the sandbar. And if he landed his bait in that eddy, he'd lift his rod tip high, wait about two minutes, then set the hook and pull up a glistening channel cat. I noticed a pattern - if his gob of chicken liver didn't land precisely within a swirling, 3-foot-diameter eddy in the middle of the riffle, he'd hurriedly retrieve his bait and cast again. During one of the long periods when there was nothing going on with my line, I half-turned and watched Dad repeatedly cast into the riffle. Over the next hour he put twice as many 2- to 3-pound channel cats on the stringer as I did.
Dad shrugged at my 20-something, know-it-all attitude and bee-lined for a riffle at the upper end of the hole. "The catfish will find the bait," I said confidently, this scene playing out decades ago. I lofted a fresh gob of bloody chicken liver into the deepest, darkest hole along the cutbank, upended an empty 5-gallon bucket, and sat down.
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