By Capt. Brian “Flounder Professor” Spencer
Let me introduce myself, my name is Brian Jospeh Spencer. Some people call me the “Flounder Professor” due to my love for that particular and very elusive fish. Fishing has been in my life for about 25 years, if you include salt and freshwater together. One of my jobs is being a commercial fisherman, searching and longing to find myself while roaming the flats of the upper Laguna Madre on the hunt for big flatfish. I provide flounder to the fish markets on occasion in order to fulfill everyone’s need to have a great fish dinner every once in a while. My other job is being a captain, putting people on their first flounder, whether by fishing or gigging, we get it done.
In this first article I will just give some basic education about flounder, their lifestyle and a couple of my favorite tricks to find them. There are two main types; the gulf flounder and the southern flounder that reside in our area. They are pretty similar except that the southern flounder runs bigger and lives a little bit longer. The huge females that we find, above 20 inches, are most of the time southerns. The gulf ones don’t get much bigger than 18 inches for the females and even smaller for the males. There are also summer flounder but those have five spots near the tail.
As a juvenile, the fry are born with their eyes on both sides of their head and not until they grow a little larger and lay on the bottom, do they begin to get the better known two eyes on the same side of their head. They tend to migrate out to deeper water during their time to spawn in November or when the water hits 65-68 degrees.
The reason they head out into the Gulf is to find water between 60 and 150 feet deep to expel their eggs. Due to not having an air bladder, they use the pressure from being so deep to make that happen. In March, they normally make their way back in for the spring run back to the flats.
When I fish for flounder I typically throw a tandem rig (check my YouTube for video) with a 1/4 oz. jighead up front and an 1/8 oz. jighead in the back. This way you can get some great action out of your back lure while still keeping it pretty low in the water column. For flounder I throw two types of lures; Berkley Gulp or Chickenboy Lures. There are lots of varieties to choose from, color and shape wise, but just try to match the hatch with what they are currently eating at the present time. Dragging the bottom is my method of choice. I use Texas Rattler Jigs in combination with my lures. Reeling in only to take up slack or bring in a fish, otherwise it is all rod movement.
Normally they say when you feel the thump or double thump from a flounder just leave it and wait about 15 seconds to give them time to eat it. Then set the hook solid due to flounder’s bony mouth structure.
Next issue I will get further in detail on where, how, what and why. If you have any questions on why I do what I do, feel free to ask me! If you would like to book a trip for flounder gigging or fishing, bay fishing or offshore check out TrinityOutfittersTx.com and leave me a message. Until next time, tight lines and sharp gigs.
Flounder Professor Outdoors@ You Tube & Facebook
Flounder Professor@ IG and Facebook
bspen112@gmail.com
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