“I love catching Flounder, I just can’t seem to catch them consistently. I’ve heard those words many times over the past several years. For many anglers flounder are a “surprise” catch while fishing for trout and redfish. For the anglers that actually go “flounder fishing” finding and catching the tasty fish is a science. Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to fish with some guys that were serious about catching flounder. One thing all of them looked for was an edge. I’m not taking about the competitive edge over other anglers, but an actual, physical, structural edge in the water.
Some people call flounder lazy, but I prefer to call them efficient. When you think about it, the way a flounder prefers to eat should be very easy for us to understand. Just like us they prefer for their food to come to them. If you plan to lie on your couch all day and watch football you should make sure you have a telephone, checkbook and the phone number to Dominos. If a flounder plans to lie in one spot they will make sure it is an area where some food will be coming their way.
Some edges like rock jetties, seawalls and oyster bars are easy to recognize, while others like underwater ledges and holes take a good depth record to find. If you ever take your boat into an area with a seawall you will probably see schools of small fish swimming along the length of the wall. The same can be said of creeks with a defined marsh line or oyster bar. Fish like to swim along edges of any kind. The bait will be concentrated along these edges. Flounder understand this and will lie along these edges and ambush their dinner as it comes by.
If you look at some of the popular flounder spots like Castle Pinckney, Fort Sumter, and the Charleston Jetties you will see that all of these areas provide some type of edge for the flounder to lie along. The trick is to find where the edge begins. This may take some trial and error and in places with high shells and rocks you can count on losing some rigs in the process. The good