If you are fishing for both sport and tablefare, you won’t find a better fish than the flounder or fluke as our Skiff Life family calls them up north. Flounder represent everything a saltwater angler could want in a fish when you consider the fight a floor mat (doormat) sized flounder puts on the other end of a rod.
Catching this interesting fish is easy when you learn a few flounder basics. First and foremost, flounder are bottom feeders who like to camouflage themselves under the mud with only their eyes showing and “ambush” passing baitfish and crustaceans. Here is an excellent example of just how well flounder can merge with the bottom.
Their bodies are flat, with both eyes facing up (pretty cool) and while not built for speed, when one takes you bait it can feel like you are drigging up a 5 gallon bucket by the way the flounder is able to maneuver and stay horizontal with the bottom. Fishing either live bait or artifical jig heads bouncing off the bottom is sure fire way to nail a Fluke.
With summer water temperatures on the rise, flounder migrate to shallow water. This is great for skinny water anglers as you can move to your sandy or mud bottoms where the waters are calm and protected from strong current. During summer the rising water temperatures bring flounder into shallower water where flounder can burrow into the soft bottom and await prey. This is great in that you have less of a chance of snagging bottom as you would with an oyster bed or rocky bottom.
You can also find flounder around causeways, bridges, edges of jetties or similar structure that provides a current break where a flounder can nestle in to ambush a passing meal. Remember, tides are a dinner buffet to flounder and when the water is moving they are awaiting passing bait.
One of our favorite Captains, Capt. Chas Champagne regularly crushes the fluke with a Matrix Shad 1/2 oz. Goldeneye jighead paired with the Ultra-Violet shad.
One of the more popular pastimes in the south is flounder gigging at night when the fluke move into shallow water. Anglers use spotlights while slowly creeping along in shallow, clear water.
One of the fan favorite boats to put yourself in the best position for nabbing a flouder is the Mako Pro Skiff 19 Pro CC. The Mako Pro Skiff 19 balances running in skinny water with it’s carolina skiff style flat bottom while also handling light chop surprisingly well.
Here are some quick specifications on this Carolina skiff style boat.
Mako Skiff Specifications:
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The MAKO® Pro Skiff 19 CC is a spacious, smooth, and stable craft that’s equally at home in the salt flats, the bay, and big inland lakes and rivers. Mako features an inspired engineering technology called AIV (Advanced Inverted V) hull that features clear water channels and integrated anti-spray design. This advanced skiff engineering provides quick acceleration, amazing stability, and a smooth, dry ride. No surprise coming from such a well established Skiff builder
