Was thinking about this , modern deal for these southern/ east coat flounder is a soft plastic or some kinda lure. That's all anyone down her talk around for them , well that and gigging. What where folks using back on the day for them ? Figured there had to be some interesting methods.Anyway to get them to take cut bait or does it have to be live or a lure of some kind ?

Any kind of jig bounced on the bottom, or close to it should work. Try white.

Grand dad would float live shrimp under a cork over the grass in Tampa Bay or on the Gulf side. Catch specks and the occasional flounder.

Try a popping cork w shrimp and report back

I like a live finger mullet under a popping cork or carolina rig. I dont catch as much trash fish as using shrimp

With a LIVE bullhead minnow hooked through the lips and 16" leader w / sinker drifted on bottom. :-)

Any cut strips from oily fish, squid or strips of skin from Flounder or sea robin belly strips....alone or on a jig or teaser, or sinker rig....drift through the area.
You can also bobber fish them with a live minnow at anchor.
White jigs are the go to, but lime green is also popular.....If you're on an ocean beach that has sand fleas, put them on a hook and cast it out with a sinker rig....

You can also add a dead minnow/ shiner, to the strip bait....Most guys here use Gulp bait now...but a strip of FRESH bunker will out fish everything....

SJA, what are you calling Bullhead minnows?

I used to commercially fish Killies, (Mummies) or Mummichogs from the local Algonquin language...Used to be a huge Fluke bait here...still some old timers that use them.

That's our Killies, lol...Newt calls them Mummies

Flounder are an incredibly interesting fish. They are the epitome of an ambush predator—to understand that helps to understand where to find them. My experience has been only with the Southern Flounder, and that when I found a good flounder hole, I could just about count on picking up at least a single flounder in that exact location on my future trips if the conditions were similar. Some holes gave up an entire 10 fish limit on the best of best days. Flounder are a fish that can be easily caught from the shoreline if you know where to go.

One of my all time favorite locations is in the pockets of where ferries dock. Why are they so good? In my opinion, tide movement is what an ambush predator relies on—lay there as the bait gets washed past. Ferries, barges, and similar locations provide nonstop “tide”. For me, the ferry would dock in a pocket. That pocket had specific areas that I would thoroughly work over bouncing an artificial lure, waiting for that rubbery snag feeling of a flounder taking my lure. Other favorite locations were points, oyster reefs with gaps, and any obstruction that would disrupt water flow and create eddies. We caught our share using live bait, but my preferred method was to work a 3” or smaller lure on a short shank 1/4 oz, heavy hook jighead. Think crappie sized lures. Curl tails and sassy shads, etc. Pearl and black on bright days, luminescent on darker days. I did usually tip my lure with a natural bait, but I didn’t want it to interfere with the lures action or make it twist, so I would trim my menhaden or shrimp small and straight. Worked like a charm. We had lots of flounder fish fries and stuffed flounder suppers in college. Once gulp shrimp came on the scene, I used those a lot. 2” new penny and 3” glow. No need for tipping gulps.


Im sure those live bait flounder rigs with bucktails are effective when searching for flounder such as drifting or dragging flats. We just didn’t try that sort of thing much, because we always made repeated targeted casts or flips to present it that way.

I always had good luck with a strip of bacon sitting on the bottom.