Cut the crab in half. Juvenile flounder will be resident all year round, but the primary season for the adult fish is from mid-May in most areas right through until Christmas. There is also an overlap of returning spawned out fish and the last fat fish just heading out in March. Flounder bites are pretty simple affairs, but it pays to understand how they feed. Another good spot is near the anchor chains as these hold seed mussels and also shoals of shrimp. Although the flounder is quite distinct, there can be confusion between this, the plaice and the dab. Releasing the line from the spool to allow the line to bow and the bait to flutter is a worthwhile ploy. One of the best rigs to use when fishing live bait for flounder is a fish finder rig. From October on some of the biggest flounder take fish baits such as mackerel, sand eel and bluey, so whatever bait you have on the day will work if you're in flounder country. 3. Big estuary flounder also like a section of peeler crab tipped with mackerel. Slide on a short section of neoprene tubing and double the line back through the tubing then pull tight to form a sliding rig stop. The longer shanked hooks are easier to retrieve from fish if they swallow a bait deep. • Mackerel • Rag Worm • Peeler Crab • Squid • Sand eel • Lug Worm • Bluey Other good baits include blow lugworm, fresh mussel, fresh cockle, razorfish, and in the colder months, mackerel strip can be deadly. The best choices for flounder bait are larger live shrimp and any number of bait fish. A standard tackle is a medium stiff semi-fast taper 7-foot casting rod with a small baitcasting … King rag is less reliable but does catch well at times. A major match angling species in many river estuaries and beaches adjacent to major estuaries, the flounder is possibly targeted by more anglers nationally than all but bass and cod. Latest. We asked 10 experts from Maine to Texas on how to catch flounder. To weed out the smaller fish, go bigger on your baits. Load these reels with just 12lb line and a 30lb shock leader as casting distances will be no more than 50yds. Flounder can vary a little in colour. When the autumnal gales start, and the flounder move down into the main estuary creek crab is still good, as are the worm baits, but they will also feed on razorfish, clams and mussels. Ask a sea angler what fish they first recall catching, and it will likely be a flounder. Bait in the area means there is a food source for the flounder to survive on. There’s no best time of day to catch flounder if you’re using a fishing rod. If you anchor up over the sandbanks and fish the inclines of these banks, you'll pick up flounder, especially either side of low water before the flounder move out into other ground and inside the harbour itself. Flounder respond to ground baiting. Whether you are fishing or gigging for flounder, high tide will be your best bet. Slide the leader through the leads inner tube, slide on a small 5mm bead and tie on a size 6 swivel. One small peeler or half (or even quarter) of a larger crab mounted on a size 1 hook will do the job. Fresh Bait for Flounder: Flounder love minnows but also love live shrimp. Top bait in many regions is a lugworm or ragworm tipped with a small sliver of fresh mackerel. By Doug Kelly. Plus, as the boats swing on their mooring ropes and the chains huff up the sand, this causes small items of food to be exposed, such as worms, and the flounder will feed on these. These are especially deadly in clear water and when fished in the quieter bays and side creeks where tidal flow is gentle. Also, when dropping anchors, place the anchor in the water and release the anchor rope in a controlled manner and feel for it gripping. They also favour shallow harbours living in scoured out holes and on mud and shingle beds. The flounder will favour where the mud is more prolific than when the ground is just clean sand. In this guide, we take a look at how to target flounder from the beach, estuary and a boat. Estuary flounder baits go by season. This rig features three separate hooks as this allows three different baits to be used which allows the most effective bait to be identified. They also travel into narrow side creeks and as the tide floods will move out on to shallow saltmarsh ground to feed over mud. Nothing beats fresh peeler crabs for flounders on many venues in spring. You will find that the smaller size 6 hooks are easier to remove with a disgorger. A hotspot will always be the deeper holes scoured out by the tide. You can add some strips of fresh squid or live shrimp to vary the bait mix. Drop down to size 6's if bites are few and far between. Hooks should be an Aberdeen pattern in size 2 to 6. Flounder are inquisitive and will move in to investigate this disturbance. Updated: July 16, 2019. Ideal boats are the smaller dinghies in the 10ft to 14ft range with a shallow draft. To do this, choose a 1oz to 2oz ball-weight and slide this on to the leader followed by a 5mm bead and then tie on a size 4 rolling swivel. Also, pay attention to where small streams or trickles of freshwater run off the land over mud and into the deeper side creeks and channels. Flounder Fishing Bait. Places like this have everything they need to thrive — lots of bait moving through a place where food is brought to them in current and plenty of places to hide for ambushing the bait. Throwing anchors in and making lots of noise will scatter any close by flounder and you've effectively scattered any fish far and wide and killed your fishing for an hour or two. Further up the estuary, if you anchor within casting distance of the entrance to a side creek and put a bait right in the middle, you'll ambush flounder as they swim into the side creek. Some anglers also favour booms because they allow the tangle-free use of lighter snoods. You can fish the swim feeder as the lead weight in light tide run areas. There are a lot of catfishing stink baits on the market that does deliver results. Always choose a lead weight light enough to either roll with the tide to cover as much ground as possible and find all the deeper holes and gutters where the flounder will sit. Fishing and Angling. Finger mullet, mud minnows, and shrimp are popular live baits for flounder. These can be periodically moved a few inches at a time across the seabed to disturb puffs of sand. Most boat fishing, for safety reasons, will be in daylight. Anything that emulates minnows or shrimp will attract them including grubs, Mirrolures, and stripped meat off a bait fish. Cut or Strip Bait. Other baits rarely survive the attention of bait-robbing crabs long enough for a flounder to find them. Flounders are a shoal species and catching more than one on a rig is common so when a bite is spotted you must sit on your hands, striking at flounders is not playing cricket. A few sea anglers turn up their noses at the prospect of fishing for flounders, but this chunky flatfish fills the gaps in the shore angler’s year providing sport when either other fish are absent, small or won’t even bite. They move into side creeks and drainage channels preferring to sit once again inside the deeper pools where the creek forms a corner typically sitting on the inside where the tide flow is minimal. Tackle. The majority of flounders caught by anglers are taken on heavy 4-6oz beachcasters when fishing for other species. Remember to keep a low profile when doing this as the flounder will be skittish when half-buried in the sand in just a few inches of water. However, these smaller tides see the flounder well spread as they can stay on ground that would normally be dry during the bigger tides. This will see the rod tip shudder and maybe dip a few times. The flounder will collect around these, but if there has been recent heavy rain and this incoming water is very coloured, move well away from it as the flounder do not like this acidic floodwater carrying heavy waterborne silt. In this situation, free lining baits such as crab and mussel, which have the weight to be cast short-range, can be deadly. Try tipping a mackerel strip with maddie rag. Copyright © 2020. While various ragworms are major baits in an estuary, lug often produces better fish from storm and surf beaches. 5. Best Time to Catch Biggest Flounder. After winter storms flounder move into the surf to feed on broken shellfish, so tipping worm baits with cockle, mussel, clam and razorfish can increase your catch rate dramatically in this situation. The flounder lay up here, out of any current and pick off passing food. Noise is also a factor when fishing. If you're fishing small estuary creeks or even main channels, then allowing the rig to roll down the sides of the creeks and into the main channel can be deadly. Some anglers are now using lead weights dipped in luminous paint for this as it attracts the flounder in towards the bait, especially in low light levels. They drop back with the ebbing tide but do not move far away from the surf tables and are often one of the few fish that will continue to feed well as the tide ebbs away. Plastic beads can be used to anchor baits on the sea bed. The Pacific Sanddab is a type of flatfish, similar to flounder, halibut, and sole. It's that time of year to target Flounder again, went to my local spot in Devon to see if any where showing. This is the rig for casting into deeper channels where there is a flowing current and when you want to specifically position the bait tight in an eddy of water on a bend in the channel or creek, or against the incline of a bank where flounder will lay. 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