Flathead Catfish
Flathead Catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) is a freshwater species. The first thing to check: a flat, broad, shovel-shaped head, quite unlike the rounded head of a channel or blue cat. The look-alike to rule out is Channel Catfish: channel cats have a deeply forked tail and an overhanging upper jaw.
Last updated
| Scientific name | Pylodictis olivaris |
|---|---|
| Also called | yellow cat, mud cat, shovelhead, appaloosa |
| Water | Freshwater |
| Group | Catfish |
| Temperature | Feeds hardest between 75 and 85 °F; largely dormant below the low 50s. |
How to identify a Flathead Catfish
- A flat, broad, shovel-shaped head, quite unlike the rounded head of a channel or blue cat.
- The lower jaw juts out past the upper — the reverse of every other large North American catfish.
- A squared-off tail with only a slight notch, and mottled yellow-brown to olive colour.
If you would rather not work through a key on a wet deck, photograph the fish and let the app name it — you get the common and the scientific name back, and the record is filed before you release.
Fish it is mistaken for
| Species | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Channel Catfish | Channel cats have a deeply forked tail and an overhanging upper jaw. |
| Blue Catfish | Blue cats are plain slate-grey with a deeply forked tail and a normal, non-protruding lower jaw. |
Read the full entry for Channel Catfish and Blue Catfish.
Where it lives
Large rivers and reservoirs of the Mississippi basin and Gulf drainages, and widely introduced. Lives alone in deep holes, log jams and undercut banks, moving shallow at night to hunt.
Temperature
Feeds hardest between 75 and 85 °F; largely dormant below the low 50s.
The conditions that matter
Unlike other catfish, flatheads hunt live prey and hunt at night, so the bite is governed by light and water temperature rather than scent trails. They are the most nocturnal of the big three — a logbook with time of capture on every fish will show a flathead curve that peaks hours after a channel cat's.
Global Fishing League records 18 weather and water readings against every catch automatically — tide stage, barometric pressure, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, swell, current, moon phase and more, taken at your GPS position at the moment you log the fish. Over a season that turns a hunch about flathead catfish into a pattern you can read.
See every reading recorded with a catch, or the guides to what each reading means.
Size limits, bag limits and seasons
Size limits, bag limits, slot limits and seasons are set by your state wildlife agency — and for many offshore and migratory species by federal regulators — and on many waters they differ from the statewide rule. They also change between seasons. Check the current regulations for the exact water you are fishing before you keep a fish — we do not republish limits here, because a number that is a season out of date is worse than no number.
What the app does do is make your side of it accurate: every catch carries a length measured from the photograph, a GPS position and a timestamp, exportable if you ever need to show your work for a tournament or a record claim. It is also what a Global Fishing League entry is built from — a record that verifies itself, without publishing where you caught the fish.