Tips and tricks that you can use to improve your results when fishing for flounder.
The tasty flounder is a great sport fish you can target in Rhode Island waters, and is also relatively easy to catch. Every day during the summer in Rhode Island hundreds of boats are out there along the south shore targeting this great fish. By following a few tips you can enjoy success and become a better flounder fisherman. Summer flounder are a funny-looking spotted brownish fish with a totally white underside, often nearly as wide as they are long. They have two eyes on one side of their head and swim with the eyes upward (which are on the brown side), tending to cruise along the bottom looking for food, not moving too far away from it. They cruise about 1-3 feet off the bottom looking for something to eat, usually taking advantage of the current from the tides to cover ground. Often they will spook some small life form as they approach, and a small puff of mud or motion is sent into the water which attracts the flounder to that area and where he will pounce on the poor creature. This interesting habit is the one we exploit when fishing for them.
Ok, so you’ve decided to go out and find some flounder.
Well, they aren’t always in the same place every day. As the season progresses, you have to go into deeper and deeper water to find them, as the water heats up during the season. Sometimes they move east or west with the tide. They prefer sandy bottoms, so these are where you want to be and you always drift for them. If there are areas where bait hang out near the bottom they will be there. Never spend more than 15 minutes on a drift when searching for them, that is the point many anglers don’t understand, keep moving until you find a good drift where you catch 4 or more fish. Then keep doing that drift until it no longer produces well. Sometimes I may move 10 times or more before finding them. If the drift speed is slow, the flounder fishing will be slow. If the drift is too fast, either slow the boat down with a drift sock or sea anchor, or give it up if you can’t slow the boat down enough to catch fish. Some anglers will stay on a drift an hour or more even when its not producing.
Onward to rigs and methods.
A typical flounder rig uses a 3-way swivel with sinker snap and a 30” leader with some kind of fluke rig attached. It can be as simple as a bare hook, or very elaborate with spinners, small squids and beads, etc. The sinker is important, as you need to have your rig on the bottom to catch these fish. Let me say that again, if your rig does not stay on the bottom, you cannot catch these fish. The rig itself, will often be a simple green squid and a spinner blade works pretty well. Catching colors can change, and size of the spinner blade. But a bare hook doesn’t always work that well. Of course, we always put bait on the hook. It might be squid, smelts, peanut bunker, or strips of flounder belly. Depends on what is working that day. Squid is usually a good bet to bring. Cut it into long strips and hook it a couple times before putting it down. Now, as for sinker weight, use the smallest sinker that will keep your rig on the bottom, so you can jig it. The rig should always be jigged, never let it drag on the bottom. A gentle jigging, lifting the rod tip no more than 12” and back down till you feel the sinker hit the bottom. Down below, what happens is your rig is moving as the boat moves along, and each time the sinker hits the bottom, it makes a noise and a puff of sand or mud. This noise and puff of mud attracts the attention of the flounder, and the bait on the hook tastes good. This is what brings them in. Sometime more jigging is better, other times less jigging is better. You’ll have to spend a little time figuring out what the prefer for that day.
Now, on to hooking the fish.
The big mistake I see here is everyone wants to haul back quickly as soon as they feel a hit. This is a really bad idea, as the flounder typically grabs the very end of the bait farthest away from the hook. So when you jerk the rod, it just pulls the bait out of his mouth, or off the hook, and you miss the fish. The trick is to lift the rod tip slowly until he is hooked or lets go of the bait. Lifting the rod slowly can aggrevate the fish into taking more of the bait into its mouth so you can hook it. Once he is hooked, then you can proceed with reeling him in. Use a light tip rod, a rod with a heavy tip makes it hard to feel the hits and hard to tell when you’ve hooked the fish. Put two anglers side-by-side, one with with a heavy rod, and the other with a light rod. The angler with the light rod will outfish the one with the heavier rod every time, given the same level of skill. I have seen it happen many times.
If you want to catch big ones, put on a big bait and be patient. You’ll still get little ones going after the bait, but all the activity can attract the bigger ones. If you follow some of these points you’ll be rewarded with more flounder in the boat.
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