2020 Saltwater Thread Part II

[kurt68]

Fish tacos tonight!

[panhandlehunter]

I'm not a flounder expert. Don't care for them ,but my sister loves them so try to get her a few. My go to that has been successful is on a vudu shrimp crawlin it on the bottom with a little hop every so often.

I’m not an expert either but I do care for them. Lol. I’ll catch 3-4 a year accidentally. Stuffed flounder is one of my favorite meals.

[justletmein]

Man I love me some flounder, nice catching and those fillets look good too.

[kevin nicholls]

I'm no expert but I do catch quit a few. Flounder are a whole nother cat. Their location is different than other fish and you have to recognize the bite as a flounder. I go down a bank throwing tight to the grass and usually miss the first strike. As said above I fish that area pretty slow and usually get a few in that area. Slow and on the bottom gets it done. I'm a paddletail guy so that's usually what gets em. I hope that helps.

[justletmein]

Curious if yall who target flounder use a heavier jighead to keep it down?

[panhandlehunter]

Curious if yall who target flounder use a heavier jighead to keep it down?

I only target them winter time, and I use a 1/4 or 3/8 oz head with a chartreuse gulp swimming mullet. But we’re fishing deeper water.

[Capt Glenn]

If you want to catch flounder on lures you need a swimming type soft plastic. Either a paddletail or a curl tail. Gulp curl tails are great. Choose jigheads with as small a hook as you can get by with. Put your lure on the jighead to where there is as small a gap between the hook and the plastic body as possible.

Flounder are ambush feeders and love to use dropoffs and spots where water is funneled for ambush points. Also along jetties, rock groins, around pilings and along grass lines. Places that will funnel bait to them. The big difference between a flounder and a trout or redfish is the trout and redfish hunt their meals down and they go to the meal and the flounder lays up in ambush and lets it's meals come to it. So look at it from that point of view, where can a flounder lay that will increase it's chances of having baitfish swim over it? That is where you want to fish. Often these are small spots in a big area.

When fishing a soft plastic for flounder think about keeping that bait closer to the bottom by not working it with the rod like you would for trout and reds. Use your reel instead. I do a little tempo where I turn my reel handle 3 times pretty fast and then stop for an equal amount of time. 3 fast cranks, pause, 3 fast cranks, pause. That has always worked for flounder better for me than hopping the lure with my rod.

When they hit what I feel is usually bump-bump-bump. Real super fast. Reds and trout are just one thump, might be hard or might be super light but it is just a single thump. So when I feel the thump-thump-thump I just stop. Don't set the hook, don't reel, just give them a few seconds to get the hook in their mouth good and then pop 'em hard.

For live bait mud minnows and finger mullet are best but they will eat a shrimp just fine too. Rig up with a single hook and a split shot, just large enough to pull your mud minnow or mullet down. Keep them moving unless you are in a spot where you just know you have lots of fish moving through. I fish them like a lure. Hook 'em in the lips and fish them slow keeping them close to bottom. When they get eaten stop and let the flounder get them all the way in their mouth before you pop 'em.

I don't get to fish for them much anymore and we just don't have real good numbers of them in my area anymore but I spent lots of time catching them in the past.

[El General]

My grandfather loved flounder fishing (and eating mainly). He wouldn't keep trout unless I was in the boat. He fished for them with 8 lb test on an ultralight spinning rig throwing little crappie tube jigs in black and chartreuse tipped with a little piece of dead shrimp. Just bump it along the bottom real slow tight to shore lines or grass lines in the marsh. He'd catch them year round.

Flounder don't fight very hard, so light spinning rigs work great.

[Capt Glenn]

My brother uses crappie jigs too. And my mom use to wear them out with plain ol cheap yellow and white speck rigs. The light ones with no plastic worm. She was deadly with 'em. My brother uses crappie jigs under an African porcupine quill float and uses that to catch them around dock pilings. Strange setup be he catches alot of them.

[justletmein]

Thx for the tips yall.

My brother uses crappie jigs too. And my mom use to wear them out with plain ol cheap yellow and white speck rigs. The light ones with no plastic worm. She was deadly with 'em. My brother uses crappie jigs under an African porcupine quill float and uses that to catch them around dock pilings. Strange setup be he catches alot of them.

Those plain spec rigs were all my dad would ever fish with.

[AtTheWall]

Flounder will react strike literally anything that flaps on a hook, a foot or less off the bottom, bounced on the retrieve.

I use 1/4 oz leadheads with long shank hooks. Shrimp, swimbait, slice of flounder belly, dead or alive bait....all can ride that leadhead and catch flounder.

Fishing deeper water, 15 - 30ft or so from a boat, I'll drop double jig heads down and bounce jig on a slow drift. One leadhead will have one color and the trailing leadhead, may have another color and or slice of flounder belly or cut mullet - scent trailers.

Flounder hit two ways. Bite and hold - feels like a big crab just grabbed the bait. You feel it's weight and it's not a dead - solid stuck hard on the bottom fouled hook feel either. Some will move slightly and it's so slow, it's not a bite tap, its the feel of moving the flounder a bit - pulling him along the bottom with body drag or a sideways swim. When I feel that, I drop the rod tip down, slacking out 3ft of line. Reel the slack out slowly and raise up with a solid rod set - not bass jaw breaking hard, just pressure and pull with a reeling raise of the rod tip. Reel out slack - feel resistance (yup still there) reel and raise quickly to hookset and load up the line/rod.

Others will tap tap tap....same deal with the taps.....I drop the rod tip and give it slack.....slowly reeling up the slack and feeling if that weighted feeling is still there when the slack is out. This gives the flounder a chance to swallow the bait.

Flounder attack with a mouth crush, using their teeth and jaws to crush and hold their prey. They then open and swallow to finish the feed.

Those that hit the bait and get it all in the mouth, on that first swallow - feel like a crab just grabbed your cut bait...and you will feel it so slightly through the line it moves just a bit.

Those that tap tap tap, they are biting and crushing the bait to kill it with their teeth and jaws, before making the swallow.

Key to flounder, you have to let them have a few milliseconds to get that bait killed and mouth closed, before they swallow. They might bite the bait 3-5 times, killing it first, before swallowing it entirely. Others - they may nail the bait like a trout or redfish - or largemouth bass - nailing and closing their mouth at the strike, no taps at all.

I've caught dozens upon dozens of flounder, slow bouncing sandy bottoms with gold spoons. After working faster and higher areas of the water column looking for reds and specks, I'll finish casting those zones, dragging the bottom before relocating.

Mullet colored paddletail swimbaits, have been the most consistent baits for me. 3-5" Mr Twister tails - all white with a 1/4 ounce red head, is the go to setup for me for flounder. Years ago.....1982 to be exact, I chased flounder along the Virginia Eastern Shore casting the then new MR TWISTER plastic tails with red lead heads. The rest of the East Coast flounder gurus, clung to their white bucktail jigs and or dual drop minnow propeller double drop leaders with live baits lip hooked and drifted below the boat at drift. I out fished those with live baits and bucktails, using plastic Mr Twisters. Hell - probably the first guy for 100 miles around Chincoteague Island Virginia to do so. The next following years......the locals all went my direction and the rest is history up there.

[doug]

My brother uses crappie jigs too. And my mom use to wear them out with plain ol cheap yellow and white speck rigs. The light ones with no plastic worm. She was deadly with 'em. My brother uses crappie jigs under an African porcupine quill float and uses that to catch them around dock pilings. Strange setup be he catches alot of them.

Crappie jigs are one I never heard of. May have to try that one day.

I've used most everything else mentioned in this thread but one that hasn't been. Years ago a buddy of mine used to throw a texas rigged purple firetail worm and catch piles of them! I havent done it in years but there were a couple place in trinity bay we would tear them up doing that!

[Punkin]

How much do the tides weigh into your decision to go fishing or not? Tomorrow for example, high tide is supposed to be around 4:30am and low tide isn't until around 8:30pm. This what I found with a quick Google search. I understand this to mean, during my normal fishing ours, roughly 6:00am - 3:00pm, there won't be much water movement. Would this discourage you from making the trip from Tomball to Galveston? Or is the tidal movement not really as much of a factor as I've been lead to believe it is?

[kd350]

How much do the tides weigh into your decision to go fishing or not? Tomorrow for example, high tide is supposed to be around 4:30am and low tide isn't until around 8:30pm. This what I found with a quick Google search. I understand this to mean, during my normal fishing ours, roughly 6:00am - 3:00pm, there won't be much water movement. Would this discourage you from making the trip from Tomball to Galveston? Or is the tidal movement not really as much of a factor as I've been lead to believe it is?

If I fished all the time it might. But since I don’t go as often as I like, I’m gonna go every opportunity I get


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[DUKFVR]

How much do the tides weigh into your decision to go fishing or not? Tomorrow for example, high tide is supposed to be around 4:30am and low tide isn't until around 8:30pm. This what I found with a quick Google search. I understand this to mean, during my normal fishing ours, roughly 6:00am - 3:00pm, there won't be much water movement. Would this discourage you from making the trip from Tomball to Galveston? Or is the tidal movement not really as much of a factor as I've been lead to believe it is?

IMO, tide is a big factor. Lack of tide makes a big factor in my decision. There are some places though that tide isn't a big of factor I believe & in that case, wind can make a big play, like on windblown shorelines.