South Mississippi Flounder

Yesterday I fished a tidal tributary of the Pascagoula River. I caught a nice 17" flounder on a lavender and white Clouser minnow. It is only my second flounder in nearly 20 years of fly fishing. I also caught a chunky 14" bass. My partner and I also caught several more bass, a crappie, a speckled trout, and a dozen chain pickerel on conventional tackle. I was really hoping to catch a pickerel on fly to add another species to the list, but it did not happen. To get the fly down I used a 3' length on lead core trolling line looped to the end of my fly line with 2' of tippet attached to the lead core. The lavender and white fly is an attempt to emulate the like colored soft plastic jigs which are very successful this time of year. The color scheme is called "opening night".

Nice! I love the broad variety of species caught. How deep was the water you were fishing? It sounds like you jerry rigged a short sink tip from the lead core, I'm just not sure the reason since were already fishing a Clouser and a longer leader would have gotten the fly deeper.

That's sweet. Ever try to solely focus on Flounder? I did not know that they would inhabit a brackish environment such as that. If I could fish for those regularly I would do so and set a few crab traps if allowed by regulations. A couple of Flounder, crab meat stuffing and indirect charcoal heat... mmmmmmm!!!

That creek ranged from 6 to 20 feet deep where we were fishing. the flounder was in 6-8' of water. I started with a long leader but the fly would still rise in the water column fairly quickly when I started my retrieve. The lead core helped the fly sink faster and stay deeper. I keep a spool in my fishing bag for those occasions when I don't bring the reel with the sinking line. Jgentile the water where the flounder was caught is completely fresh but still influenced by the tide My fishing partner has fished that creek extensively since the 1960's and that was the first flounder he's seen that far upstream.

Hi Bob:

Here's something you might want to try for flounder. Since they seldom go more than a foot or two from the bottom to take a fly , you really have to get it right down on the deck.

However when you are fishing sinking flies you spend a lot of time with the fly out of their attention zone and if you do get it down there, it's often obscured in the weeds and snag a lot.

If you use a sinking line or a sink tip you run into the same problem.

I've done most of my flounder fly fishing with a fly which looks like a nineteenth century bass fly, fore runner of the deceiver but with a fairly light wire hook and with a muddler style head. You want the fly SLIGHTLY buoyant.

I then fish a long leader on a floating line. The leader tippet is ended with a split show and where it joins the rest of the leader, I leave a foot long tag of the heaver material.

Thus the long leader tag becomes the tippet. The split shot takes the fly to the bottom while maintaining a tight line to your rod tip and the fly sinks much as minnow injured but trying to make for the safety of the bottom

Now, the shot is on the bottom, the leader tight and the streamer headed into the current like a bait fish does. You give a twitch, pull or hand twist retrieve and the streamer darts down for safety, you stop and it rises like a baitfish with a swim bladder trouble.

If you snag, it's usually the split shot which usually either comes out of the weeds or pulls off the line. In that case, you still have your fly and simply pinch on another split shot. Should you find that it pulls off too easily, you merely tie a figure eight know below the shot.

Jack

deceiverbob said:

Yesterday I fished a tidal tributary of the Pascagoula River. I caught a nice 17" flounder on a lavender and white Clouser minnow. It is only my second flounder in nearly 20 years of fly fishing. I also caught a chunky 14" bass. My partner and I also caught several more bass, a crappie, a speckled trout, and a dozen chain pickerel on conventional tackle. I was really hoping to catch a pickerel on fly to add another species to the list, but it did not happen. To get the fly down I used a 3' length on lead core trolling line looped to the end of my fly line with 2' of tippet attached to the lead core. The lavender and white fly is an attempt to emulate the like colored soft plastic jigs which are very successful this time of year. The color scheme is called "opening night".

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Thanks for the tip Jack. Flounder are an incidental catch for me, both on conventional gear and fly. Most of my fly fishing is sight fishing for redfish. Blind casting for speckled trout comprises most of the rest of it. I do carry a fly rod on most boat trips and if an opportunity presents itself I take advantage, such as this summer when Biloxi's Back Bay was full of blitzing ladyfish that were terrorizing the local schools of menhaden and bay anchovies. They ranged from 18-24" long and were really fun on 6 and 8 wt rods. In this case I was trying to catch a pickerel which would have been a new species for me as I have not done much fly fishing in the local fresh water rivers and creeks.