First trip out to Swanquarter/Rose bay

sundrop said:

I keep 2-3 different baits tied up when I flounder fish. If I find a "pattern" especially I will work an area over hard and have had times when I could pull multiples out of a small area and then when the action stops, change baits and continue to pull even more fish. I like to locate a fish then anchor and work that area. Flounder are opportunistic feeders so they will congregate in an area they know will bring the food to them. But they also can be very finicky and follow a bait a few times before they decide it looks tasty enough to eat. That is where the different baits really come into play. Now granted, I'm no Mr Pelt, and my experience is limited, but in the past when I got to fish more often, that worked for me at least at catching numbers. I never have found the real key to size other than live baits.

Click to expand...

Greenmonster said:

After reading the phenomenal reports of others on this thread, and getting some VERY helpful tips from Neptune and J.Edwards, my daughter and I headed out of Greenville at 5 a.m. headed for the Rose Bay boat ramp with dreams of flounder being stoked by warm coffee and the kind of conversation that a dad always relishes with his daughter - talk of fishing. To say that I was apprehensive would be a gross understatement. I knew there was a lot of water out there and had no experience with it, and I REALLY wanted to see if we could put a few flounder in the boat. Some people dream of Tarpon, others fantasize about bonefish. For me, a Flounder is up there with the finest of the sportfish, and to have a chance to catch a doormat with my daughter was enough to draw me waaay out of my comfort zone and make the 1.5 hour trip east.

Based on some advice (thank you again Neptune and J. Edwards) we headed out of Rose Bay and started hitting the banks pretty hard with Gulp Shrimp. I was quickly getting anxious, there was so much water and I had no idea what I was looking for, so we were just hoping to get lucky once or twice to figure out the pattern. The first 30-45 minutes left me in a near panic - we caught nothing, saw nothing, and a passing boat indicated they hadn't had any luck either.

Then it happened. My daughter hooked up, and with a hookset that would have made Roland Martin blush, she pulled a nice little flounder into the boat. It was short, but it was a flounder, and we immediately caught on to a potential pattern. A few casts later, I saw my jig stir up some bait, and I slowed it waaay down, it hung up "on the bottom" and the "bottom" moved. Another nice hookset and Daddy evened the score. 1 to 1.

I managed a small trout, and then we pulled in two more short flounder. We were finding fish on the windward points, usually where the baitfish were hiding in the lee side of small points, and right up on the bank. They were all small. I texted Neptune, only to find out he'd managed 7 already, with multiple keepers, so I begged for a few more tips. He came through, and we quickly doubled our catch from 4 to 8, with a 17 incher in the boat.

We were off the water by noon, with 9 flounder and only one keeper, but an absolutely phenomenal day. We ran across a guy who had managed 6 keepers with 2 21 inchers (we saw them!). Wow, somehow I have to find some of those guys!!

And I've been able to think of nothing but getting back there ever since.

A few questions for my fellow flounder pounders - if you are willing to answer (or PM me):

1) I saw many people anchoring up and fishing a single spot for a long time. Is this normal? We were trying to cover a lot of water, and only finding a fish or two in a single spot. Do they tend to stack up in a spot? If I find one, should we hit the place harder?

2) Outside of just pounding the shoreline, are there other things to look for? An cues that I would want to find besides bait?

3) Which side of my mouth was I supposed to have my toothpick in?? And what hat was I supposed to wear?

Click to expand...