big flatheads come on live bait period.  Big bluegills in the spring and small in the fall.....summer from late June till mid August is particularly tough regardless of where you are at.  Thats because of the spawn and post spawn and they feed very little if at all during that period.  Try fishing without lights,,,freespooling clickers on is the  way to go and keep noises down to a minimum,,,especially those that travel thru the ground,,airborne noise doesnt transfer to water easily.  In the spring keep your baits in shallow water 1 to 6ft at night and in the fall 6 to 15ft.  Always keep your baits in the area where the bait fish like gills are,,,so becoming a good gill fishierman and being able to locate them is key also. oh did I say no lights,,,,zero, zilch none---the only light I have found that they can tolerate is the dim glow of glow sticks. oh no campfires either.

That made me wonder :idea:  does anyone know what the highest record
is on a flathead of pounds and length :?:

Flatheads on ONLY livebait is bullcrap. We catch lots of flatheads out of the Ohio every year on cut skipjack and shad. To each his own. Find the fish is your number one goal and then present the fish what they want depending on the time of year. Shallower water at night and around creek channels in the day. I have seen some flatheads come out of Rend lake mainly on limblines and trotlines though.

Fish the flooded timber in Rend lake for the flathead.

The problem here is that flathead are more active at night and you must fish out of a boat to reach the submerged timber. You can look for spots on shore close enough to fish the timber at night.

I recommend live bait especially in lakes. You will need live baits large enough to fend off lake Rend channel cats.

A good fishfinder might help ya out. :wink:

Rend is one of Southern Illinois' crappie hotspots.  Thusly, the crappie clubs have dumped alot of crappie structures in that lake.  Find a substantial one of these in about 4 to 9ft. of water and fish it.  The blue gill and other bait fish will hang to this structure and the flatheads know it.  But like Jim said.....Fishing for big flats in the summer is generally a long wait.  Hit them in the spring and fall.  Then move over to a power plant lake in the winter and fish the structures in the hot ditches. The winter is the best time to fish the power plant lakes.....The flats stack up on good structure in the warm water and feed heavy.

If you're interested in a great power plant lake that pumps out massive cats all year long (and for those who like bass, it puts out huuuge ones in the winter), I recommed fishing the Newton Lake.  We just fished there last week (on a day that started out great but went south thanks to the weather) and although we didn't land anything over 15lbs, we had several blues and channes and a couple flats.  We were busy ringin'em in, so thats just my two cents.  Enjoy.