Guides finding fun in big flatheads, recapture tagging survey showing interesting results.

Story by Matt Williams

William Oliver loves the big bite.

Oliver is a 39-year-old multi-species fishing guide from Chandler. He catches plenty of slab-sized crappie, white bass and black bass, but what makes his guide operation truly unique is the house speciality on the menu — targeting whiskered fish with serious weight problems using forward-facing sonar. Jumbo flatheads really float his boat.

“Big flatheads have always been my favorite fish,” Oliver said. “In 2019, I had a special customer who encouraged me to learn how to catch them on rod and reel with LiveScope.”

Oliver took the bait and the innovative juices began to flow. He soon found out that consistently fooling the prized game fish can at times be more of an exercise in frustration than satisfaction, even when you can see the fish in real time using some of the best electronics money can buy. In short, the learning curve has been a steep one.

“It ain’t easy,” he said. “It took me about a 1,000 hours to learn what I know. For years, I was the only one in the country that was doing it. You couldn’t watch a video, read a book or phone a friend to learn anything about it. I literally had to pioneer the whole thing and learn it myself using LiveScope.”

Oliver calls Lake Palestine his home lake but says just about any reservoir within an hour’s drive is fair game. Lake Tyler is one of his favorites. He has also ventured out to lakes Cooper, Richland Chambers, Tawakoni, Livingston and others.

Not surprisingly, there have been some true giants caught and released from Oliver’s fishing rig over the last six years. The long list includes a pair of flatheads over 80 pounds, 14 in the 70s and 11 blue cats over 70 pounds. He lost track of the 60 pound and smaller fish he’s landed long ago. The current lake record rod and reel blue cat weighing 51.57 was caught from his boat in January 2025.

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