The Art of Flounder Gigging
As the temperatures start warming up, we find ourselves coming into the shallow water fishing season. Right now is a good time to get the boat tuned up and ready to go because we are expecting a strong 2018 season full of flounder, carp, gar, and more. This week’s blog will hit on some reminders as our coastal community starts gearing up their 316 Stainless Steel Flounder Gigs to fill freezers full of the finest fish fillets in the sea – flounder.
Flounder gigging has a higher success rate when we have a new moon rather than full moon. A new moon makes for a darker night, which allows the bright flounder gigging lights to blind them and leave them stationary because they can’t see you. A full moon allows their eyes to adjust, giving them a better opportunity to spot you in advance and move out before you have the opportunity to gig them.
When flounder gigging, two there are two critical key factors to finding flounder:
- Finding bait fish, they come into the shallows to feed at night.
- Locate moving water, many times they will face head into the current.
While it is not impossible to find flounder in areas that do not meet these critical key factors, keeping them in mind will help increase your success rate.
It is important to understand the tide when strategizing your gigging trip. As the tide moves in, flounder will follow the baitfish in. As the tide moves out, the baitfish move out and flounder will follow. In most cases, the tide is lower during the day and higher at night. This is a key reason why flounder gigging gets better as the night goes on. The tide will continue to rise and flounder will continue to come in. If you are concerned you are going out gigging to early or late, a good rule of thumb is to watch the direction the flounder are faced when you spot them. If they are head towards the shore, they are still moving in. If the head is faced away from shore, then you need to be out on the water earlier because they already came in and are heading back out.
Flounder are very elusive fish. We have watched them sit still while waiting on baitfish and not even moving when crabs walk all over them. We’ve even seen a crab step on its eye and the flounder did not flinch! They will leave indentions in the sand when they leave. If it’s a fresh print, it will be a sharp edge where the flounder would have quickly move away and in some cases they can even be buried down underneath the sand. It is good practice to double check these flounder beds to make sure one isn’t hiding underneath the bed. In some cases, you can follow bed paths to locate additional flounder.
The new Swamp Eye Revamped flounder gigging and bowfishing lights have encountered some production issues, which are being corrected as I type this blog. We are very excited to release these new lights and expect to have them available in 2-3 weeks. Thank you all for your patience and we are looking forward to a great 2018 flounder gigging season!