I have been fishing for a long time and i've never caught a flounder. If anyone has some hints please let me know. I fished around Anahuac, texas city, 18th street, sylvan and still have no luck. tides? Baits? Weather? Time?

Fall is best, after a couple of good cold fronts. Fish slowly and methodically with jigs on the bottom or Carolina rigged bait (finger mullet, shrimp or mud minnows). Fish high tides. Know also that the bite is a solid thump, followed by weight on the line. If using bait, you have to give them a few seconds to get it in their mouths. Others on the forum probably have some better info - flounder can be tricky to catch consistently, as far as I've found. Good luck!

^^^^I couldn't of said it better myself.

Are you using lures or bait?

Lures-try red w/ white tail. kills em every year. Work slow along the bottom. It will take some time to tell the difference between the bottom and a strike. Remember, a flounder's strike is VERY different from a trout's. It almost feels like your snagged.


Pm me if you have any questions, I'll be glad to help ya out.
The main thing to remember, is they have a VERY bony mouth, so you need to set the hook pretty good. they also love to short strike, I don't know how many times I've gooten a flounder to me and saw he just had the tail in his mouth and just lets go...

Best place to fish for flounder is in the shallows around Pelican Island after the first cold front or over by rollover pass across the Galveston ship channel. The best luck I've had picking them up is to run a chartruese Gulp flip tail with a piece of shrimp on the hook. They can't leave it alone. Jig the Gulp across the bottom VERY slowly. They will mouth the bait and you'll feel it come to a stop. Count to 3 and set the hook. Another place I'd recommend is the small pier at the mouth of Pleasure Island at Pt. Arthur. Same bait or mud minnows if you can find them. If you find mud minnows, try a small flip tail only on the hook too. You will see guys walking very slowly along the pier. They are just letting their bait bounce off the bottom at the base of the piers. This time of year you ought to be able to pick up 5 or so doing this. Same issue with the fall run - still a little early for it.

Another spot. Once you come down off the bridge from Pt. Arthur to Pleasure Island, turn right and go past the yacht club. There is a concrete wall at the water's edge. Flounder love to lay up against that wall. Walk the wall and drag the bait across the bottom.

If you aren't getting snagged, you're probably not fishing right.

Hey Oilman-I love using pieces of shrimp, but have you ever used the white bely from a flounder? Cut it into strips a little smaller than a piece of gum, and stick on the hook as a trailer. It really holds on better, and the flounder love it!!

I had a bag of strips in the freezer till my gf found out what they were...Needless to say, they were gone the next.

Any place that has a drop-off works well too. Mud flats are great in the fall also. We always wade the backside of Rollover, take the boat across the intercoastal and wade those flats. Nice trout out there too!

isn't it illegal to use sport fish for cut bait?

Flounder are not GameFish.

The best method I know of is using a coleman lantern and a gig.

I haven't tried that one yet but will. I've got a few in the freezer now and have been fileting them which can leave the belly available for fishing. Some of these guys are wasting time fishing for flounder in gavleston bay. Lake Sabine has 100 times as many flounder. If they can get over to Calcasieu lake just south of Lake Charles, you can catch 5 a day now just fishing in the bayou mouths on the SE side of the big lake. I can't imagine how many flounder there will be there when the first cold front hits. But I'll stock up on bait and wait for it to happen.

Can you fish Sabine without a boat? That's why I fish Galveston and Port O'connor... I would love to try Sabine sometime.

It sounds to me like fishing flounder is equivelent to fishing Halibut off of the west coast? Am I wrong?

I was an avid Halibut fisher in SoCal, and I was also looking into flounder.

Same family, just bigger. I'd love to get into some of those California halibut. How do you fish Halibut?

I like the simple the best. Just like you would for catfish. A slider egg weight, 12-18" leader, 2/0 wide gap or circle hook. Differant times of year and depending on the available bait sardines and chovies work best, but cut squid and GULP! peeler crabs work good too. We go light on everything. 10# MAX. fluoro leaders. But they will bite on swim baits bounced off the bottom. Hell even underspins and spinnerbaits will get them if the bite is WFO.

You said just like Halibut but bigger...How big are we talkin here?

I believe he means that flounder are in the same family as halibut, but flounder are much much smaller.

That SUCKS. My biggest Hali was 15lbs. Whats a good size Flounder?