# Flounder offshore?



## CaptScoob38 (Jan 30, 2012)

Anybody have any reports of catching flounder offshore? Ive always heard the flounder stack up offshore n the winter but have never tried it, whats the best way going about it? Thinking about giving it a try, appreciate any feedback.


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## submariner (Oct 2, 2007)

My understanding is that the flounder head to the gulf sometime in Nov/Dec and come back in around Feb/Mar. They go to the closer in wrecks and structure. That being said I have caught flounder in over 150 ft of water. I have not gone out this year but 3 barges might be a place to start. They are not right on the wreck but around it. Anchor off the wreck, cast towards the wreck and slowly pull towards you. You might also pick up trigger. Use live shrimp Let us know how you do Good Luck


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## gmoney (Oct 3, 2007)

Flounder do indeed stack up on near shore reefs and wrecks. Best bet is to figure out your drift,and either drift fish from the wreck/reef away with a carolina rigged finger mullet or similar bait, or anchor the boat in such a way that you will be fishing near the down-current side of the structure. Fishing will be sporadic until you really zero in on them, but once you find a good spot you can limit out with ease. Which isn't to say you should, these fish are offshore spawning remember?  Take what you need and let the rest spawn and make baby flounder. 

You should begin looking for flounder in at least 30ft of water, they are sometimes caught shallower but 30ft is a good starting point, though personally I've had my best luck in about 60ft of water. If you can't find finger mullet or sardines then squid and shrimp work, but there are a lot of bait thieves around these near shore reefs. One excellent bait is skate or stingray belly, cut into about a 5 inch by 1 and a half inch strip. Or flounder belly from the first one you catch. These are great baits and last for quite a while, in fact the guy who showed me the skate bait used the same strip for an entire day without it falling apart. Hope this helps


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## SoCal619 (Nov 18, 2011)

+1 on what gmoney said. It's easy to catch a bunch of Flounder once you get on em but you should really only keep what your gonna eat. When I target Flounder I like to use a 1.5oz egg weight on a Carolina rig with light mono line and a light spinning reel to feel the bite. I like to position the boat on the outskirts of any nearshore wreck and use live shrimp on 4.0 circle hook sitting at the bottom. I am no expert by any means and there's probably a ton of dudes who target em better than me, but so far that has been how I get it done.


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## CaptScoob38 (Jan 30, 2012)

Well went out today and gave it a shot but with no luck. Started at the pyramids and the bridge rubble near 3 barges then ended up at tex edwards, I couldnt get past the snapper and undersize aj's which was a blast on light tackle. Got bored so sent down a big bait to see if the man in grey suit was home and pulled up about a 8ft 200lb bull shark, biggest shark ive ever caught which was pretty cool. All in all couldnt have asked for a nicer day. No meat in the box so ended up eating some raw oysters at Peg Legs on the way home.


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## ashcreek (Oct 4, 2007)

we went SSE of Perdido pass a couple weeks ago 18mi out on some random numbers we pulled from MBT water depth was 108' and we caught at least 25 11" flounder. No BS every single one of them was almost exactly 1" short and we could have continued to catch as many as we wanted all day. They were eating shrimp and squid....
Good luck


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## gmoney (Oct 3, 2007)

Shame the snapper wouldn't let you be. Next time try some shallower wrecks maybe? At least you caught something though-sounds like a fun trip.


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