Summer Flounder Fishing
NC Summer Flounder Fishing
NC summer flounder fishing can be quite productive, in the smaller creeks just off the Cape Fear River, my favorite bait is the menhaden on a fish finder rig with a circle hook. Other baits include finger mullets and small pinfish.
Anchoring up to a grass line bank with a scattered oyster shell bottom will hold flounders, all you have to do is just be a little patient. Fishing with live menhaden requires you to give the flounder time to eat the bait, after the initial hit on the bait, wait let the fish do the pulling and the circle hook will set itself.
The entrance to a slough running off a small creek is also a target zone for locating flounders, often a flounder will lay on a sloping bank waiting for its prey to come by. Then again you may find them just laying up a flat shallow-water flat with a muddy bottom. One of my favorite methods to catch a flounder is to drift baits on Carolina Rig in Snow’s Cut when the current is running from the bridge to the Cape Fear River. This requires a constant eye on the depth finder in order to keep from hanging up on the bottom be prepared to adjust the lines according to the bottom depth. Keep your bait about 3′ off the bottom a large flounder will rise up to strike the bait. I have also caught quite a few red drums while drifting Snow’s Cut.
The islands all along the Cape Fear River, hold flounders just moving along the banks, making a cast to the shore with a slow retrieve, starting and stopping the bait is a great technique. It seems once you find one fish, there will be others along the same stretch of shoreline.
N.C.marine fisheries have determined the stock is low, so they have shortened the flounder season for the last two years. As of 2021, the season runs from Sept.1 -14.
Summer flounder – Paralichthys dental are flat. disc-shaped fish white on one side brown, gray, or dark olive color on the other side fish will have spots throughout the body.
Capt.Mike Dennis – Cape Fear Guide – 910-619-0928
Capt.Mike@charter.net