Really it was the sun that was fabulous. I’ve had no less than 20” of rain at my house this month, most of it in the last 2 weeks. Just getting out in the brilliant sun this afternoon was a big win.



Launched at noon. Had all those rainy weather flies I tied with me. Used one fly all afternoon, an Olive Borski Slider. That got a total of seven fish to hand, redfish, redfish, flounder, croaker x3, and a Black Drum. The first redfish was my favorite or was it the flounder? The redfish took off with the slider as it hit the water and had moved 30 feet before I could catch up. It was definitely a plus on the fight for a five pound redfish.

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The flounder was on a grass line harassing shrimp. It thumped the fly hard and came right to me in the kayak, but once it got close, the 7/8 CGR just bent all the way into the butt trying to pull it up off the bottom. I won that tug of war contest, but not without the obligatory flounder at the net drama.

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Got a great work out paddling back into the freshening wind. Thoroughly enjoy my outing, long overdue or it felt that way.

Looks like some fun!

This particular fish was in a type of spot I’ve found them before. It’s a place where there’s a pretty deep channel with tidal water flowing in and out, depending on the tide, and supplying a shallow bay. The flowing water passes over a shallow bar that shallows up even more to become a grassy shoreline in spots. In the transition, there’s an area where water passes through a thin and porous line of cord grass. Flounder seem to like to lie in ambush in the lee of the flow coming through the grass. Yesterday, I saw some tiny shrimp hoping and avoiding a spot in this zone. I then just cast a little past the spot and brought the weighted pattern through the spot, slowly stripping, more dragging really. Some days I have to vary the speed of the presentation, but it’s not something that typically painfully slow.

If I get a solid thump, I give a little strip set with maybe a heart beat of pause before the set. I’ve found flounder are pretty good at sucking in flies so there’s not much need for a delayed set like maybe with a bigger lure.

Flies that I’ve used are normally tied on size 2-6 hooks. I’m not seeing any real pattern on one color being better than another. The patterns invariably are tied to ride hook point up. Yesterday, I used the Olive borski slider tied on a size 4 Gamakatsu bonefish hook with a small tungsten dumbbell as the weight. The small (I’ve only been able to find size small and medium in tungsten) size isn’t hard at all to cast with the 7/8 weight CGR. I use a shrimp pattern I weight with a 3/16” or 5/32” tungsten bead. I use redfish crack weighted with mini to small lead dumbbells. Clousers work too in the sizes I mentioned.

But in general, I focus on edges. Edges of grassy shorelines with a little current, could be a wind generated current or tidal. Edges of oyster bars, edges of channels, edges of piers and pilings jutting out into the flow. Most of the flounder I sight cast are along the grassy shorelines. Sometimes, They will actually breach in pursuit of baitfish and shrimp. Then I cast over the last known whereabouts and move the pattern through the area until I get the fish or give it up for lost. The rest of the flounder I focus on fishing the types of structure I mentioned.

I’m mainly into and mostly enjoy using floating fly lines so that limits how deep I can fish. I do have an intermediate tip and a teeny sink tip, but seldom use them. I can’t say I normally focus on flounder, but I won’t pass up the opportunity if presented.

Nice work

That is the kind of detail that really helps me fishing, thanks!

Flatfish are the best eats from the salt, and you get 3 fillets if you do it right.
My biggest fly rod flattie was 26" from a pothole on the flat just beside the long shallow tide pass to the Gulf, between Matagorda and San Jose barrier islands, fishing an intermediate sinker. I haven't owned any tip since I tried one around 1980 and discovered what a dumb idea they were.
At the other end of that pass on a December day, caught 40 flounder on consecutive casts, slowly crawling a Teeny TS-250 sinking line across the sand with nobody-else's whistler - just bead chain to keel the fly hook-up - they would come back at it for a second and third bite if necessary. They use their teeth to injure their prey and often bite short - lures designed for them are made with stinger hooks.

One summer day from the same pass, while we were all catching a limit of specs - the tide was running out like a river and was fishing the TS-250 for specs - in that current and a fly rod, the only way to get time in the zone - only other choice would be heavy lead paddle-tail jig on a bait rod - the pass drains parts of Aransas and Copano bays, St. Charles Bay, Carlos Bay, Mesquite Bay, massive San Antonio Bay, and one-fourth of Matagorda Bay. When you hook up a slot-limit redfish in the bayou current, you run down the sand toward the Gulf, because there is no other way to stop them before they spool your backing.
We were watching a guy across the bayou hooked up, and each of us caught 10 fish before he landed it. We got to see the biggest flounder any of us have ever seen - it was certainly over 40" and would have blanketed a coffee table.
Bottom bouncing canal lights at night is a great place to fish for them.
My buddy Ewell took this on his fly rod on my dad's last birthday trip.


Have the big fall extravaganza coast kayak trip planned with 4 buddies beginning next weekend, and will be a long photo essay after I return. Won't be targeting flounder this time of year, because there are too many other good things happening, but we'll certainly be in places where we might catch a few.
My 89-y-o dad hasn't been involved in the prep for this trip, but his ears must have been burning.
My mom called me yesterday, telling that he was in the driveway running the boat motor to flush it out - and it was running well.
So I called him and told him where to look at rent property listings for Arroyo City. Next new moon, Nov, will be at Green Island, Oilfield Flat, and Marker 203 flounder hole with my dad in his power boat.

Nice looking flounder! Their teeth are wicked. They look like piranha teeth and are oh so sharp, very hard on deer hair (and fingers).

Thanks for the share, dmiller328. And you too, bulldog1935. Sounds like you’ve got a great trip planned, hope to see the report.

I’ve still got flounder on the brain and that lead me to I put on a fast intermediate airflo 9wt tropical sniper line I had laying around on my 8/9 weight graphite (can I say that here?) Short Stix. I’ll still have my two 7/8 weight CGRs along loaded with floating line, but want to be able to get a little deeper with the intermediate line and see what that does for me. I dock cast it and it cast great and handles nicely.

I won’t be able to get out for a least another week, but maybe we can keep a flounder thread going for a while.

Maybe we can get a snook thread going, too. I saw my first Texas snook this year right close to my home. My buddy and my daughter’s BF each caught one last year, also close to home. I saw about a dozen and had a couple of decent shots, but those went better for the fish than for me. My buddy had another good one this year break off using a paddle tail. Some, even up here on the upper coast, survived last winter and have gotten bigger.

That’s what I like about saltwater fishing, you just don’t exactly what species is around at the times you are fishing. One day on our vacation week I caught small striped bass that were chasing small silversides, went to the same area the next day and there was schools of good sized bluefish that made the water look like it was boiling going after schools of menhaden.They chomped off many of my plastic lures because I did not have my metal spoons in the kayak with me thinking that the striped bass would still be there. Luckily was still able to have a good fight with a couple bluefish. The only species that stayed consistent was all of the 12” or so speckled trout.

Haven’t caught a snook yet one of these days I need to go further South to put it in my fish bucket list.