what moon phase do you think is the best for catching Flatheads?

Internet seems to contradict itself, some fisherman like the Full Moon & some like the New Moon (dark)?

I fish shallow at night with rod and reel. Do the best in the dark of the moon. This can be very slow fishing for old Mr. yellow.

I've never really had any luck with the full moon allways caught more on darker nights

Same here, the dark nights seem to be better here. My grandpa use to say the full moon had a strong gravitation pull on the earth and made the cats not want to feed. Sounded good to me.

Best night we had on trot lines was during full moon. 7 flats with 2 over 30. Also have had real good nights on dark moons so personally I don't think it matters, when they feed they feed and then shut it down for a few days or weeks.

Looks like someone needs Lynns famous Catfish Calendar.

I now have two focal items as to YellowCats (Flatheads, etc.) on the Catfish Calendar now. The standard calendar markings YC & the listing I call my PYC (Personal YellowCat Days). For many years, I wondered why sometimes it might skip a week here & there. The Calendar indicates the strongest one of my 4 listings for a given day YC, BC, BFT (Buffet), or ZIP. However, I finally realized that the underlying pattern is still there, but the Calendar may indicate another as being the strongest for that particular day. So the Yellows do not actually go on Vacation, so to speak.

So for those who are going for Yellows or Gator Gars, they now have 2 ways of targeting them for the optimum (max).

As for Full Moon or Dark Moon (New Moon), here is my experience. I have been on several rivers during the Full Moon watching the waters late at night. It seems the fish really become active in playing. Perhaps it is due to the gravitational pull. Perhaps it is the unique lighting which does something interesting to the waters or as to what they see. Whatever it causes or is the cause, they tended to be in constant play. At least for 4 hours or so. They do not do this during the Dark Moon. And during that play time, they just did not seem to feed or bite.

I would not have thought of it any much more than that, except for something my boss mentioned a few years back. He noted that he had the best bite (catches) of his Crappie Fishing near the New Moon (when it was darkest). And I think he asked me about my experiences as to that & catfish. I thought back to some of my YellowCat catches (if I ran the lines late night). I realized it had been the same way with Yellows for me. Most had been really dark nights. For this reason, I added this tip in the Calendar Key that the Yellows & Gator Gars tend to bite later than normal near or on the Full Moon.

I started thinking back to those full moon nights. You can run the river or lake with no lights, and you see a lot of fishing hitting the top of the water, just playing like Lynn said. On the river, we run our lines every two hours. On the full moon, most of the cats we caught was in the 4:00am run and close to first light of morning. If I'm not mistaken, that's when the gravitational pull is starting to get less. Plus the moon light is starting to change angles on the water.

If you think, the moonlight penetrates deep into the water. This has to cause the bait fish to react. They seem to hang closer to the cover of safety or is it what they feed on is more in that cover? The yellows we caught on these nights have been closer to where they find cover. Not so much roaming around.

I know people use those green lights to fish around and the bait fish come to that. After the bait, comes the target fish your after. To me the green light gives off a color closer to the half moon then a full moon and it is in a small area, were the full moon light is all the area. Most big fish I caught off the green light is just on the edge of the light.

You know if any of you guys have kids, this would be a good science fair project. Plus, a great reason to go fishing! YOu got to get the data for the project.

Great Input Big Zee!!!