The biggest flounder are usually caught from structure areas with deep water present beneath them or at least nearby. Snow’s Cut and the Cape Fear River are prime examples of this type of cover. So are the bridges at Oregon Inlet, Morehead City, Emerald Isle and all other Intracoastal Waterway bridges.

Most trophy flounder fishermen use super braids when tossing big live menhaden into heavy cover. A big flounder can put up a valiant struggle. Old hands at the game anchor as near the cover as possible. They contend that if you hook a flounder from a boat tied beneath a boat dock or pier, the fish will run away from the structure where they can follow it and have a better chance of landing it. If they are anchored away from the structure, they say the fish will head into the thickest part of it, tangle the line and ultimately break off.

The ocean piers have excellent flounder fishing. The angler pulls a live bait or a frozen, salted minnow along the bottom using a Carolina rig. The pier piling and deck create structure flounder find irresistible. Once the angler feels the fish strike, he waits at least 30 seconds and sets the hook. The fish is brought up to the pier deck with a hoop net lowered and retrieved with a rope.

Flounder are caught from the nearshore ledges and reefs in large numbers. Some of these fish will top 5 pounds and occasionally one may top 10 pounds, but such summer flounder are rare these days. The angler drops a live minnow to the bottom on a Carolina rig or a dropper rig with the sinker tied below the hook to help keep it from snagging on the bottom structure.

SPOTTED SEATROUT
The speckled trout bite the past few seasons has been nothing less than spectacular. Specks are fast-growing fish, with females reaching citation weights of more than 4 pounds in two or three seasons. The males grow slower, but can still achieve exceptional weights.

Warm winters are key to speck abundance. A prolonged cold snap can create winterkill, but that hasn’t happened in four seasons. Big specks abound everywhere there’s salt water.

In the backwaters, float rigs with popping corks are very popular among speckled trout specialists. A soft-plastic trailer is hooked on a jig beneath the float. The line is jerked as the slack comes out of it and beads on either side of the float bang against it, making a popping sound that arouses interest from nearby specks. The commotion attracts the fish to the jig below the float.

Topwater lures work well for catching specks, with walk-the-dog lures and stick baits top choices. Specks often strike several times and miss the hook, then lose interest. They appear to be bouncing the lure off their teeth when they miss.

Some anglers solve this problem by using floating soft-plastic lures or tiny jigheads that will make them sink very slowly. Once a speckled trout gets a soft-plastic lure in its mouth, it usually will not let go until it’s hooked. Another trick is adding a stinger hook on a hard-plastic topwater lure. The factory treble is removed and a wire leader is used to add a treble from the rear loop of the hook harness, extending the hook back a couple of inches.