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Lot of difference in pole fishing and set line bait. With set lines you run them in the morning and bait them in the evening. At least I do. You need a bait that will stay alive if you want flatheads. Goldfish, green eared sunfish (black perch) bullheads all fit the bill nicely.
On a rod and reel when your creek chub dies or quits moving your bobber around you switch it for a fresh one.

When pole fishing a creek with chubs you walk hole to a hole. Tossing one into the shallows at the top of it letting the current carry it into the hole. Catch a channel or three and walk to the next hole. Drifting you use a small egg sinker ontop a swivel. 12-18 inchs of leader and a hook. put on a grass frog or shad or creek chub. Let the wind drift you across the lake. Drop offs old creek channels are good.

In the early spring when the water is cold (channel cats) wait for 15 mph plus wind. Fish shallow water on the side of the reservoir the wind is blowing too. (wind in your face). Those catfish will be feeding in that warmer water.

Right now is flathead limb line time. You tie a line to limbs hanging out over the water. Doesnt need to be big. A live green limb thats pencil size at the end and wrist size or bigger at the tree is perfect. Huge fish cant break it. Only needs to be 3-4 feet out from the bank. I like to alternate between baits a few inchs off the bottom to bait a foot under the surface. Some nights one works then it switchs.

like with trapping some nights you fill a boat and some nights you dont. location is the key every night

We used small carp or bullheads…both way tougher on a hook than most bluegill hill or crappies were. Flat ties are definitely predators.
For channels cut bait is king, and fresher the better. Stink boats and other weird stuff is good for small channels but for big channels we found it tough to beat a fresh cut up fish part.

Jim

Teepee sent me these pictures of his set up to post here. He claims that old spring scale is accurate but he's a Cardinals fan so you never know if he can be trusted. lol

I like that idea

We use 3/4” PVC with long nail and small washer as swivel. Bungee cord hog ringed through swivel and loop with hog ring on other end. To wind up you put hook or hooks in end of pipe and wrap line around the two screws on pipe side for holding line. Cut bottom of pipe at 45 and squeeze shut with torch and pliers.




I like the hooks point tucked away in pipe so it’s safe to grab a whole bundle and yard down to the boat without getting a hook in you or tangled.

I like to have my bait right near the bottom of the river. I couldn't do that in a lot of locations with just 8-10' of line on the poles.

Trapset my hook points are under a short piece of 1/2" hose that fits over the poles. Don't you have trouble getting the PVC in the banks? We couldn't get them in our clay banks so we added rebar to the end but then we got a couple snapped off where the rebar ended inside the poles.

My old poles...

It's that deep of a drop off at the edge that 10ft doesn't hit bottom? Or are you stretching out towards the middle?

I generally set areas they're going to be hunting around structure

We did have with the white stuff Jamey. When we went to the heavy gray pipe, 45 ends and close we haven’t had any problems. Have never had one brake from a fish. Now drunk guy stomping on one in the boat once, different story………I might resemble that remark. Lol

I just have a few pics from spring set line run with son and new DIL:



Have some Flathead action from last year on home computer. I’ll post when I get there.

Oh….. and God son was along.

I use 10' poles and say they are 3 feet in the bank, that puts them 7' from the shore and on good cut banks even in the smaller river we fish there are holes that are 15' deep against the bank. When we fished the Mississippi the shallow holes were 15', lol. so you'd need 15' of line under water plus a couple more from the pole to the water. I set a few poles in 6' or less but not ideally, only if there is heavy cover that expect the fish are up under.

You probably don't wanna run up on them with the boat either. lol

We never had a fish break them until we added the rebar. When we pushed them in, the top end of the rebar was right at ground level and it didn't let the pole bend there so it snapped off a couple. My BIL had the same thing happen with his. There was no way we could get them in the bank in a lot of locations here with the rebar though.

Geotek (sp) in Mn sells the rods I use too. They are fairly cheep if you're in the neighbor hood and can pick them up instead of paying shipping. They come white and somewhat pointed on the end. I paint them camo to help hide them from would be thieves. I also set them during the week and no holidays or weekends if I can help it.

Again though, I only target the biggest flatheads and can only use 5 lines per person so my way may not be the best option for everyone. If I was running 100 hooks I'd set a few throw lines with drops in addition to the poles. I'd use some other baits if I were running the lines every couple hours too. ... etc...

I don't use the poles in the deep holes. I put a line along the bottom. We're not restricted to how many hooks though so I see why you are doing it that way.

I like finding shallow shelves along the edge that are 8-10ft under for the poles. Generally we fish the Mississippi or the red River. Are yall allowed to utilize limbs as well?

No sir. Our lines have to be attached to the river bank and labeled with a tag with our name and address. I suppose you could tie off to a limb if you ran the other end of the line to a stake on the bank to end run around the rules a little.

We use these home made ones in the foreground.
These to the left are fatcats I think is the name , they are made by a guy in Iowa I believe. The homemade ones are 8’ long and the fatcats are ten foot . When I was a kid using willow we never used a weight and kept our creek chubs and big minnows as close to the surface as we could and had very good luck . When I made my first 8’ fiberglass rods I used 250# braid and 8/0 circle hooks, snelled . I think it helps with the hook getting set in the corner of the mouth.

We need DL# or Name and address on each line here.

I started snelling hooks a couple years ago for my smaller meat lines and really noticed a big difference. Doesn’t seem to matter as much when we swap out to big hooks and bullheads for the overnight run.

Since I was a little kid my dad and older brothers called any line we left out over night a “set line”. Usually made from willows and pretty crude. I’ve called them “set lines” my whole life. I’ve heard them called diddi poles, bank lines and limb lines. What else have or do you call them in your area?

We call them ditty poles. A long line with drops we call a trot line or throw line.

We call them bank poles, lines on a limb are limb lines. And then trotlines.

If yall go to the NTA, stop by the Louisiana booth.

In my mind, a trotline is a long line either tied off on both ends, or tied off on one and anchored on the other... with multiple hooks. A bank pole (or diddy pole I guess) is what ADCs got in his pic, regardless of what material it's made out of. A limb line is a line tied to a supple, springy branch with a weight on one end, and just one or 2 hooks. It's not tied to a branch shoved into the bank, it's tied to a branch of a living tree.