Lady angler scored this flounder while vertical jigging.
The first time someone told me about flippin’ for flounder, well, to say I was dubious is a gross understatement. Increasing age increases my skepticism and Irish blood makes me stubborn. I never fell in love with flippin’ (basically vertical fishing for bass in heavy cover), so I sure didn’t see much sense trying it in salt water. Friend and taxidermist Ray Thomas changed my mind.
A bonafide flounder-catching machine, he swore flippin’ (I have yet to hear it pronounced with a ‘g’ at the end) was the hottest flounder technique for shallow water. Thomas fishes from a small skiff (appropriately named “Flounder Pounder”) and he works a limited section of the lower St. Johns River in Northeast Florida. He knows every rock, dock, piling and ledge in a section of river only about a couple miles long.
Thomas will tell you that flounder are very cover-oriented. They hug tight to jetty rocks, old docks and piers, barnacle-encrusted pilings and riprap, old ship and boat wrecks—basically anything broken and tangled. Over the years, he has used a sensitive depth finder to pinpoint key spots where flounder live along jetties and sunken pilings and docks. To do this correctly he had to position his boat almost on top of flounder hotspots, so his casts were very short. Plus, he discovered that long casts usually foul line and lures on pilings, rocks and other debris.
His lure presentations for flounder were more “flips” than casts, and that was about the time bass tournament anglers started setting the world on fire using their flippin’ techniques in thick largemouth bass cover.
Close range "flippin'" is deadly for flounder.
Early one calm spring morning I accepted his invite to hit river hotspots. First stop, a cluster of old pilings and half-sunken docks. We cast jigs tipped with mud minnows around the perimeter of the structure. Thomas smiled as he watched me, while he flipped a jig right into the tangle! A few minutes later he boated the first of many flounder he hauled out of the jumbled wood. To say the least, he had me flippin’ in no time.
This simple presentation entails holding fishing line in your fingers at the reel, while a flip of the rodtip sends a lure into heavy cover. It’s a very precise, close-range, underhand toss that allows you to fish closer and more vertically than with a conventional long cast-and-retrieve. Flippin’ for flounder is essentially the same as flippin’ for bass. However, many saltwater fishermen prefer a 7-foot spinning outfit over a baitcasting rig, though revolving-spool gear is favored by most bass anglers. Flippin’ tackle is used somewhat like a fly rod, though underhanded, and at close range. Fishing line is pulled through rod guides with the left hand (like a right-handed fly caster would do), as an angler raises the lure and line from the water with his rod. The lure is then sent on its way to the target with an underhanded, pendulum-type, increasing-speed motion, which flips the lure to the target. Therefore, spinning tackle is better because a flipped lure easily pulls more line off a spool, if needed, as it reaches the target. A comparatively heavy lure is preferred to pull line quickly off a spool, and also to get a lure down the water column fast so it’s less likely to foul from tide or current flow.
Even small rocks on a mud flat are worth a flip or two.
Since that eye-opener on the St. Johns, flippin’ has caught flounder for me from North Carolina to Texas. One of the reasons this works for flounder is that they don’t spook from a boat like many fish do. These flatties aren’t idiots, but they’re not bonefish or snook either. That does not mean you can roar up to a dock with a big motor, throw an anchor in four feet of water and immediately catch flounder. Flipping works best in discolored tidewater, usually tannin-stained river or estuarine fisheries, which helps conceal an angler’s approach. However, I’ve scored well flippin’ for flounder while wading in very clear water, too, since I snuck around, and cast lures gently for minimal impact.
While careful and quiet anchoring is okay (and in fact must be done where the current is strong) I prefer easing along with an electric motor in water 3 to 10 feet deep because it allows for precise boat positioning around snags and rocks, docks and pilings. Just go slowly, into the current, using tide flow for proper boat positioning while carefully working your lures.
