IT'S ALL IN THE BOOK, THE CATFISH HUNTERS

**Mac-b** · 03-24-2012, 02:39 PM

Back around Thanksgiving a young fellow stopped by my house and wanted to know if I would give him some pointers on catching catfish. I stopped what I had being doing before he arrived and escorted him over to the rear of my F150 and I sat on the tail gate for an hour or so talking about cat fishing and NASCAR with him. He told me about his job with one of the race teams (Roush) and I told him some stuff about fishing for cats on Lake Norman. Couple of months later I get an e-mail from him telling me that he took a Bud fishing and they caught a nice blue cat and had the photo attached depicting a blue cat of thirty plus pounds. Then in February I see him and his Bud on the water and we chatted and of course they wanted a little more information about fishing for Flatheads. I told them about the book 'The Catfish Hunters' and they bought one at Piedmont Bait and Tackle. Then today I get an e-mail from him telling me he caught a nice flathead on LKN and his photo is too large to download onto the USCA, but I have it. Really looks large and he said that it was 41" long with a girth of 34 '. Man it had a large head ! I will be glad to forward the photo of the flathead if someone reading this know how to down size it for the new photo management thing and enter it on this thread. Just PM me your e-mail address.

Believe it or not, I got a call from Justin Edwards this AM telling me about a large flathead caught on LKN and Justin said that a friend had sent it to him. The friend was a friend of the fellow that caught it. Justins informed me that the guys had a fifty pound scale and it would not weigh it !

34" girth X 34" girth = 1156 X 41" length = 47396 divided by 800 = 59.25 pounds.

PS, this was a CPR fish !

**WylieCat** · 03-24-2012, 02:53 PM

E-mail it to me Mac and I can resize it....

**fubar4life2010** · 03-24-2012, 04:15 PM

Thankyou Sir for that report!
The book of knowledge is a great book..ISYN..

**WylieCat** · 03-24-2012, 08:03 PM

Here are the pics....great flathead.

**Jessie** · 03-24-2012, 10:45 PM

very nice fish, thanks for sharing

**Catpaw** · 03-25-2012, 01:42 AM

Thank's for posting that up Sir Mac.

**Hunter1978** · 03-25-2012, 10:15 AM

WylieCat you need to give that man some pointers on taking pictures of large Flatheads man ! Even though it was still a hell of a cat !

**WylieCat** · 03-25-2012, 10:38 AM

"...WylieCat you need to give that man some pointers on taking pictures of large Flatheads...."

Funny you say that!

Eric Jenkins from Team Hook Line and Sinker and I were talking about some pictures of flatheads caught this spring. There was one that looked to be 45-50 pounds, and the angler said it weighed 36 pounds. Then there was another that the angler said weighed 55 pounds and I would have bet it was not over 40-45.

Eric has a formula: guess the weight, cut it in half, and add 8 pounds. For you kids good in math I think this is right: gw x .5 + 8 = egw "EGW" stands for educated guess weight......LOL!!

Seriously, never take a picture of a flathead from the side like a blue; flatheads look small that way. Always hold them vertical and photograph them viewing dorsal side. The flared gills helps to add 10% to the body weight!!

I think what makes guessing a flathead weight tough is that they appear anatomically proportionate from about 25-45 pounds. Once they surpass that 40-45 pound range you really start to see a difference in the stomach area.