If I am setting a limb line or ditty pole, do you recommend me setting my live bait near the surface or near the bottom? I know I could make lines with multiple hooks at different depths, but I'd like to make my lines with twine, a heavy egg weight above a swivel with 12" - 18" of braid and a large quality hook.

Others will have better comments, but the lines I have done or worked with others, have been 2ft above bottom, with live bait... depending where you put your lines, you need to be careful about High, incase others are around them.. Safety first. Not that many folks will be swimming these days.

Gotcha. I will be setting a small bayou and a medium-large bayou. The water level fluctuates big time, it can go from low levels of 1-3' deep in the straights and 4-10' in holes during low water to 15' higher than that in a matter of 2 days or less during high water.

Would you set the same distance from the bottom at a location no matter the water level? Example: One place where the bayou has a long straightaway, then it hits an almost 90 degree turn, goes for only 40 yards, and then another very sharp turn to a long straightaway. My grandfather called it the swimming hole, because it's the deepest hole around there, he and his siblings swam there in the 1920's.

I know that it is a good place to find flatheads, and I was just wondering if I needed to set them close to the bottom all of the time, high or low water, or if people have found that they feed in a different location during high water....

I plan on learning from experience and doing it myself, but the curiosity is getting to me. It's a whole heck of a lot of work to access this location, you can't get there by boat at normal water levels unless you use a chainsaw LOL

bluegill and green sunfish should be hooked in front of the dorsil fin in current so that they flow naturally in the current and will live longer like that ... be sure to scale the live bluegill or any kind of sunfish just a little bit on one or both sides ... flathead will home in on them much quicker if they've been scaled... taught my kids that and they caught the devil outta those flatheads below the dam at Keystone while others sat there all night not catching anything.

Flatheads like to hang out in those river bend holes as well as big blues after the spawn

Since the lakes are up so high, please remove your gear when not in use so the rest of us won't get clothes lined when the water goes back down.

Since I've only set lines on a small, non navigable waterway bayou on private property, in Louisiana, you being clothes lined by my gear when the water goes down won't be an issue. At least it shouldn't be.

I always remove all of my gear, always, just like I pick up all of my trash, always and pick up trash that others have left behind whenever I can.