Caught a couple flatheads last night along with a few crappie. The bigger one was 44 inches but I didn't get a weight on it.
Jason's Fishing 2016
- Thread starter Jason Short
- Start date
I'm not sure these will be the first flatties that I eat. I normally throw them back but didn't this time
Mao
Member
Congrats on the fish. I honestly hate to hear a 44" got ate instead of getting put back to fight another day. We only eat 10# and below. Great fish though man congrats!
Mao
Member
Not many big flatties around over 35# on the Muskingum, Tusc or Walhounding. You can catch 5-10# pretty regularly. There are tons of them around. However, in the last 10 years to many of the 30+ Pound shovels have been kept and not released. It's an old fish to get that big, just not many of them around. They are there, but like a 5+ year old buck, very few and far between. Everyone I know that seriously catfishes in my area turns the big boys back.
Mao
Member
Another way to look at it would be like pond fishing for bass. You typically can catch a bunch of 2# or less of them because there are so many. How many 8+ pounders do you catch? And when you do, they go on your wall or immediatley back in after the hero shots. Same idea. You wouldn't eat an 8 pound bass, you would put him back in hopes of yourself or someone else hooking into him.
Yup you're right, normally I wouldn't keep one this big but I did for certain reasons. I won't say what the reason was cause that might give up my fishing spot and enough people fish there already.
Mao
Member
Depends on location but for Ohio I would say at least 10 years. More likely 15ish.
Jason's a bass fisherman and flatheads eat live fish so my guess is he is going to eat the fish that has been eating his bass. Enjoy your fish dinner!!!
I've eaten them out of Indian Lake. They are really good. I just trim any red meat and silver skin off and there is the whitest, firmest meat left. Honestly is very tasty
Haha no I kept the bigger one because I'm not sure how much longer there will be fish living in this spot. I don't mind a few bass being eaten, something's gotta keep the population in check since everybody releases them nowadays
I hate catching them slimy bastards lol.... You'll have slime 2' up the line from them rolling...
Have caught 15-20lb cats while bass fishing...
Have caught 15-20lb cats while bass fishing...
We fished a club tournament at Tappan yesterday and caught around 7 or 8 little bass. I hate that lake lol....Then this afternoon I did some swamp fishing using my buddies kayak and caught 4 little guys in a couple hours. Here's the biggest one. Nothing special just some fun little bass
