Posted on October 17th, 2016
The beautiful weather continued today and looks like it will for several more days. It’s even going to be warmer tomorrow with highs reaching into the low 80s. I can’t take it anymore and I’ll be flounder fishing with my buddy Captain John Prather tomorrow….I’ll let you know if we catch anything.
Matt Ellis of Ocean City caught his limit of flounder last night and was nice enough to let me share his technique with any of you that might be looking to catch more flounder. Matt was fishing from the route 50 bridge, but I’m confident his technique will work most places.
*15# braid for the main line joined to about 3’ of 20# fluorocarbon leader.
*Tie a Kreh loop knot at the end of the leader big enough fit a 3/4oz – 2oz bucktail through so you can change them out w/o having to retie.
*About 10”-12” above the kreh loop , tie a dropper loop big enough to pass a 1/0 or 2/0 baitholder hook through.
* For baits, I use Gulp swimming mullets. 5” on the bottom bucktail, 3”-4” on the teaser hook. I like chartreuse, pink & white. When they’re really hungry, the type of Gulp doesn’t really matter too much. When I run out of the bigger bucktail Gulps, the smaller Gulps will still work on the bucktail.
* Situate yourself so you can throw your rig up current, doesn’t matter if you’re on a bridge, boat or land, Slower water around tide changes allows for more control of your rig and its easier to feel bites.
* When retrieving the rig back towards you, jig it with a rapid, non-stop pulsing action, keeping the slack out of the line so the bucktail is bouncing the bottom. Sometimes they like faster, sometimes slower. Just dial it in considering the speed of the current and fish preference.
* When I feel a bite, I set the hook aggressively. Other techniques say to wait 10 – 20 second for the flounder eat, but I’m thinking that applies to long strip baits. Flounder usually inhale a Gulp and 90% of the time they will eat the top teaser bait.
* I get snagged a lot. It sucks and costs me $$ but it’s part of the game I guess. The same snags get me every time, so I deserve it.
Out of all the info above, my opinion is the jigging action of the bait is what really makes a difference between catching and not catching. The rapid, bouncing action of the baits really stimulates them to attack it.
Bear at the Oceanic Pier reports that the flounder fishing from the pier is really good right now too. Marine Tom and Bob the webmaster had a good night last night catching shad, blues, flounder and tautog. The duo used a combination of spec rigs, sand fleas, green crabs and minnows. Bear’s son Joshua caught his first ever tautog on a green crab.
Mike and Colby Snedaker of Selbyville, DE caught this nice keeper flounder yesterday on a bull minnow on the outgoing tide in front of the Coast Guard station.
Mike also submitted this photo of Albert Purdy of Ocean City who caught this big 21 1/2″citation sheepshead on a wreck close to the Ocean City inlet. The guys caught a bunch of smaller sheep too on sand fleas.
