Article by Sue Foster
“I caught 100 flounder this week, but no keepers!”
Boy, I’m hearing that a lot this year. But then I am seeing familiar faces come in to our stores to get their pictures taken with keeper flounder almost every week, sometimes twice a week. When we look at the Coastal Fisherman, we see lots of trophy sized flounder within those pages. The local MSSA had a flounder tournament in Ocean City on Saturday, July 31st, and over 30 keeper flounder were weighed in and measured. Local charter boats like the “Get Sum” and “Skip’s Charter Service” have keepers every week. Granted, they don’t have them every day, but they fish as often as some of the local boaters that aren’t getting keepers.
“What are they doing differently than the guys that aren’t getting any keepers?”
Sometimes it’s plain dumb luck, like the wife that catches the six-pounder and she’s not
a fisherman, or the youngster that snags the 4-pound plus flounder on the push-button combo. When it comes to flounder fishing, it’s the captain of the boat that gets in the right hole at the right time that is “really” the true fisherman!
Last week, young Ham McPartland of Lutherville, MD caught his limit of flounder fishing in the main East channel. His dad told me that he caught all 4 flounder in the same spot within a half hour. The large percentage of keeper flounder seem to bite right when the incoming tide starts to slack up, becomes high, then just begins to go out. Sometimes you can fish 3 or 4 hours of the incoming tide and only get throw backs and then just when that tide starts to slow up, bam! That’s when the larger fish tend to bite!
Ham’s father also told me that when he found his “honey hole” he positioned the boat with his motor running to stay in that same hole and “work” it while the kids were fishing. Again, a good boater is really the “hero” when it comes to catching fluke. (My husband tells me that all the time when he is running the boat, and I am catching flounder!) Watch the depth finder, and note what the water depth is when you catch a nice size flounder and try to work that same depth.
“Don’t forget about low tide.”
Everyone fishes the high tide. Two hours before and two hours after high tide is “sacred” to local flounder fisherman. BUT sometimes, when you work the deep channels close to the Rt. 50 Bridge, Inlet, and off Homer Gudelsky Park and the Commercial Harbor, low tide can be very productive. The south side of the South Jetty is also good on this tide if it is a nice day. There are fewer boaters and less boat traffic, during this time. You can’t get into those “skinny water” secrets holes, and you have to be careful while boating that you don’t hit sandbars, but there are flounder out there at low tide also.
“The bait!”
Everyone uses live minnows with a strip of squid, or frozen shiners and a strip of squid. If you look at the paper, a lot of anglers are using Gulp!. Not necessarily Gulp! alone, but Gulp! with a live minnow or shiner. Remember, bigger bait, bigger fish. In shallower water, you can put the Gulp! Swimming Mullet (4-inch is the most popular) on a lead head and then bait up with your minnow or shiner bait. Slide the Gulp all the way up on the jig head just like you were fishing for trout or bluefish. OR, you can slide the Gulp baits on your flounder rig hook, and then put on your minnow or shiner. You can add a squid strip too.
Some anglers use the larger Gulp! baits like 5, 6, and even 7-inch Jerk Shads. Anglers usually add a strip bait to these rather than a shiner or mullet. A nice long strip of squid, fresh bunker, fresh bluefish fillet, flounder belly of a legal flounder, lizard fish fillet, sea robin fillet, croaker fillet (off a legal croaker) or spot fillet. I often hear, “Oh, the live spot I caught is far too big for bait.” Why jeez, fillet it, strip it, and put it on the hook. Flounder love it!
A lot of these really good fishermen that use Gulp! will jig and twitch their baits. Jig, jig, twitch, twitch, let the bait go still…. Go out with Capt. Monty on the “Morning Star” and get a serious lesson on this! Many anglers also do a “slow troll” with a trolling motor or bump their regular motor in and out of gear.
Large live bait is the ticket from now until the end of flounder season in the fall. Some anglers buy several pints of minnows and pick out only the largest minnows. Others catch their own live bait.
The easiest bait to catch is alewives. These little “bunkers” are the fish you see flashing under the water in the canals, lagoons, marina basins or Northside Park. Early in the morning is a good time to look for them. Throw a cast net and only keep two or three dozen alive for bait. Throw the rest back or you will have nothing but a bucket of dead bait. Put them in a bucket with an aerator immediately. They need lots of oxygen or they will die. Hook them in the mouth and out the roof of their mouth.
You can also cast net small finger mullet this time of year at Northside Park, Homer Gudelsky Park, marina basins, marshes or along almost any sandbar in Ocean City. These are hardier but you still need an aerator or throw them in the live well. They can jump out, so “keep a lid on them!”
Live spot are the most popular of large live baits. You can catch them around Northside Park, 9th Street Pier, Marina Basins, or any canal in Ocean City with little tiny freshwater size #8 hooks and little pieces of bloodworm, night crawler, or artificial Fishbite bloodworm. Anglers also use Sabiki rigs baited up with the worms to catch spot.
If you are in a boat, the area around the Rt. 90 Bridge has a lot of spot. Try catching them in water that is 3 to 5 feet deep. Any deeper, (unless you are in a canal) will bring up fish that are too large. Spot bite on the running tide and DO NOT bite after dark. Hook spot in the mouth and up through the roof of the mouth. (Some tackle stores sell spot, but plan to pay anywhere from one to three dollars for each bait.) Again, you need an aerator bucket or a live well to keep spot alive.
When fishing with larger live baits, the flounder angler will catch fewer fish, but catch larger fish. Try to fish the deepest holes. If you have limited live baits, save them for the slacking tides. The larger the bait, the longer it takes the flounder to get it in its mouth, so count to 10 before setting the hook!
Good fishing….
Sue Foster is an outdoor writer and co-owner of Oyster Bay Tackle in Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Tackle in Fenwick, DE.