Article by Sue Foster
It’s that time of year when there are plenty of fish, but sometimes not many keepers! Flounder are biting, but so many of them are short. What’s an angler to do!
We’ve always said that bigger baits will catch bigger fish. You might not catch as many small fish though. It’s the time of year to invest in a cast net and an aerated bucket and catch whatever you can catch! Little alewives are usually flipping around in the Commercial Harbor, lagoons around Ocean City and in shallow water creeks such as Herring Creek. Many people find bait at Northside Park. You’ll find live bait is easiest to find early in the morning. Just keep a few dozen and release the rest so they will stay alive.
Finger mullet are harder to catch but they hang around the edges of sand bars. Get out of your boat at low tide and look for the swirling baitfish. You have to be fast. Keep the lid on your aerated bucket or they will hop out.
“I tried to catch some live spot by the Route 90 Bridge but they were too large!”
If the live bait you are trying to catch is too big, don’t toss it! Scale and fillet it! Then cut it into long strips and hang it on your favorite flounder rig. There’s nothing like fresh cut strips of fish meat that will entice a big flounder this time of year. I like to strip larger fresh mullet, bunker, bluefish and croaker. Those ugly lizardfish really work great! Yes, flounder feed on those prehistoric looking lizardfish, so if you happen to catch one, keep it for flounder bait. It’s one of the very best!
If you use a fish for bait that has a legal size limit, you are supposed to keep the carcass in your cooler in case you are checked. That would be bluefish, croaker or flounder.
When I fish offshore, bluefish fillets are one of my favorite flounder baits. I hang it on the flounder rig or on a 3 or 4 ounce Spro bucktail and jig it off the bottom. Anglers this year are having a tremendous time catching good-sized flounder offshore on the artificial reef sites. Drifting around structure will usually catch you some flounder this time of year. Just like in the bay, sometimes you have to wait for the current to start running. If there’s no current, flounder fishing can be slow. Jig, and maybe even try a slow troll and wait it out. We don’t eat 24 hours a day and neither do the fish!
Someone asked the other day how long flounder will bite in the bay. I’ve always noted that they bite pretty well into the first or second week of October and then they can slow up. Generally you can still catch some up through Thanksgiving. It usually has to do with weather and the first really big coldfront that happens in October make the flounder want to move out of the bay. During the first and second week of October, most of the good fishing is right around the Route 50 Bridge and in the Ocean City Inlet, as the fish stack up near the bridge on the change of tide and make their way towards the ocean.
I’ve counted over 50 boats hanging near the draw of the bridge during the last of the incoming high tide waiting for that bite. And yes, that’s when the larger flounder bite. High tide and when it first starts to go out is when the whoppers are caught. You can fish the east channel all day and catch dozens of throwbacks, but when that tide gets to that “one hour each side of the high tide” your chances of catching keepers are best.
“What about Gulp!?”
Anglers that are good at using Gulp! like to use a 5-inch Gulp! on a big hook OR on a 2 to 3-ounce Spro bucktail in the bay. You can also combo that Gulp! with a strip of bait or a live minnow or shiner. You need to use a 2/0 or 3/0 wide gap hook to accommodate the larger size of the 5-inch Gulp! The 5-inch Gulp! baits get expensive when the blues and little sea bass are nipping at their tails. You only get a few in a pack, compared to the popular 4-inch Gulp! Mullets that folks use in the summertime. Save them for the prime tide!
If you are using the 4-inch Gulp!, combo them with the usual shiner, minnow or squid strip to give your baits the illusion of a larger bait. Anyone that has ever fished with me knows that I like to put 3 different baits on a single hook, and yes, I catch my share of big flounder!
But, if you are fishing an attractive live finger mullet or live bunker, it’s best to let it swim alone without hanging any extra Gulp! or strips of bait on the hook. If you are fishing live minnows save the biggest ones for that perfect tide. Sometimes, especially if the water is clear, flounder like a plain live minnow with nothing else on the hook.
Someone asked the other day what rigs work best offshore for flounder. I like the Aqua Clear Rigs because they are less likely to tangle in deeper water. You will need to use heavier sinkers than in the bay. Take 3 to 5-ounce bank sinkers offshore, and sometimes, you may even need a 6-ounce sinker. Spro bucktails in the 3 to 6-ounce range are always good to take offshore and jig off the bottom with bait strips or Gulp! (or both).
Flounder that you find offshore will hang near structure, but not necessarily on top of it like sea bass. Go up to the structure and drift off, bouncing your rig along the bottom. As long as you are feeling rough bottom, you know you are on some structure and in flounder territory. Changes in bottom depth, just like in the bay, attract flounder. Where there’s one, there’s more. Mark that spot and go back!
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.
