Sensitive graphite rods with cork grips are best for interpreting bottom cover when flippin’ for flounder. Just as important is quality line. I prefer low-stretch braid for its sensitivity, thin diameter, and abrasion resistance. Some very successful flippers tie braid—even bright colored line—directly to bait hooks or jigs. In stained water that’s okay, but I prefer using a 4-foot shock leader of 20- to 30-pound-test fluorocarbon. A barrel swivel can be used for the connection, since a swivel doesn’t have to be wound into a tip-top when flippin’ as is required for most standard casting. A better way, however, is to connect braid to fluorocarbon with an Albright knot or Uni-knot.
Almost any proven flounder lure or bait can be used for flippin’, including spinnerbaits (which are virtually snagless). Most flippers, however, favor jigs, sometimes fitting safety-pin style spinners to jigs to give them fish-appealing flash. Grubs imitating marine minnows, shrimp and crawfish serve well, and I’ve had recent success with 3⁄8-ounce jigs and 4-inch Old Bayside Skeleton Shad soft plastics, particularly in Tomato-Core, Bubble Gum and Pearl colors. Tube jigs are excellent, especially rigged Texas-style, like plastic worms. Specialized weights that hold fast inside tube lures resist snagging. The Lindy E-Z Tube Weight System is a good one. And Eagle Claw’s unique “HP” or “High Performance” hook is hard to beat for use with tube lures and other soft-plastic artificials around rough flounder hangouts. With its wire clip at the hook eye, it resists snags exceptionally well.
Of course, flippin’ jigs designed primarily for freshwater bass are excellent. Strike King makes a number of these, and their Premier Elite and Bootlegger jigs are personal favorites. These jigs have lively rubber skirts, and a tapered nose and forward-pointing line-tie ring designed to resist hanging in cover. These jigs also have nylon weedguards for deflecting pilings and rocks.
Tipping jigs with soft plastics makes them more effective for flounder, but it’s better to use a small whole mullet or mud minnow, fish belly strip or even a piece of pork rind. A flippin’ jig with a small bait attached is hard for a flounder to resist. Hook a finger mullet through the head, piercing the throat and out the hard skull at the top of the bait. This kills the bait, of course, but it holds on a jig hook well when working cover. Fresh shrimp can be used on jigs, too.
You can make a jig more snagless by fitting a rubber band through its hookeye, and stretching it back to the hook barb. When a fish strikes, it depresses the rubber band, exposing the point and barb for a solidhook set. A fresh-dead shrimp can be made snagless, too, by hooking it Texas style, somewhat like a soft-plastic lure. Pinch off the shrimp tail flipper, and run a jighead through the tip. Now bury the hookpoint in the shrimp so that the tip is just under the hard shell of the bait’s back.
A bait on a bare hook, with a splitshot or two pinched on the line near the hook works for flippin’ also. It’s not as sexy as some of the other lures mentioned, but it works. At times, a slide-sinker, fishfinder bait rig is deadly when flippin’. Tie on a 12-inch leader, and a No. 2 to 2/0 offset hook. Hook size is determined by bait size. Sinker weight depends on current flow, but usually egg sinkers 1⁄2 to 2 ounces work well.
Flippin’ for flounder is pretty laid back fishing. It’s slow and precise, but things heat up in a hurry when you hang a doormat 5-pounder or better in the middle of a jumble of old dock pilings within spitting distance of the boat. That’s a heart starter for anyone, including an old hard-headed Irishman who needed convincing to try the technique in the first place.
