What is the best bait or lure to catch a flathead catfish?

Night Crawlers are very effective for catfish another excellent one is crawdads, shad witch is a small stinky fish that cats LOVE also small bluegill are good dough balls are for placing on the line not the hook so dont put em' there. Hope yah catch 100 pounder (cg)

Chicken livers, Nightcrawler worms, Cut baits, some types of Dough baits and Dip baits work. Good luck and good fishing!

Catfish usually don't go for lure. They usually like worms or livers.

Chicken Liver ? anything that stinks

Tony and Anthony are right on. Big, live-baits work best. 4" to 8" Bluegill rigged on a big hook.

Live Bait... I use 4"to 6" bream (in Georgia game fish can be used as bait, check your State regs. first) rigged on a 3 way swivel so bait is about a foot off the bottom. Use a lighter weight line to tie the weight on so if you snag the weight will break off therefore less re rigging. Fish this rig downstream into a deep river hole. This is deadly on Flatheads and sometimes Stripe Bass