Fluke Bait

[Tarpon4me]

Ahhhhhh, now I understand. "Hutch" was just explaining the perdicament of the CT. waters. In that case, i'll let you in on a little secret my self and some of the locals around my way do. Since you don't have the bait availability that I have a few states down, try this out for size. Get yourself an ultra-light, a standered 2 hook rig W/ small hooks, and some shrimp or small chunks of cut bait.(preferably mullet, which you should be able to buy at any bait and tackle store frozen very cheap) Sit on the dock or any where people often clean fish and fill your live well with the local trash fish.(pinfish, spots, croakers, etc...) Though, to the untrained eye, they are nothing more than a pain in the butt bait thief. To a flounder fisherman, those 4-6 inch ankle biters are diamonds in the rough. There is nothing better than the local bottom feeding species to fish for a bottom feeding flounder. Most people over look that much untapped resource. Not to mention it's fun and easy catching the bait, and there is plenty of it. Go for the bait on the end of your rising tide, then, by the time you've got plenty of bait, it's falling tide and you're ready to spank some fish booty. I'm prior Air Force and have fished all over the world for just about every species of fish. And there is one thing that still holds true, there is no substitute for live bait. Well........... I think lures work better for Wahoo, but that's a whole other story. Live bait caters too all the fishes senses: Sight, smell, taste, feel, and how can you compete with the natural presentation of the real thing? So...... Just because you can't go out in the creek and catch a net full of Menhaden or Mullet doesn't mean you don't have a resource of fresh, live bait at your finger tips. It's always been there, sometimes you have to think outside the box. Infact, the biggest flounder i've ever caught was on a pinfish. I'm not shure if you get that species of fish up there, they are in the porgy family.(like a saltwater bream) If I use a Pinfish(porgy) for bait, I take a pair of sissors and cut the sharp dorsal fin off the top and clip the tail fin slightly so the fish will swim in an injured fashion. If i'm drifting, i hook the fish throught the eyes. If i'm stationary, I hook him just behind the dorsal fin, above the latteral line(to stay away from the spine), in the meaty part of the back. This way the bait can swim naturally away from the boat or dock. Khale hooks are a must, but that's a given for any flat fisherman. That extra wide stance of a khale hook increases your hook up rate by atleast 40% for the simple fact of the size of a flounders mouth. A grown man can just about stick his entire fist in the mouth of a 5 pound flounder. 3 to 5 pounders grown on trees down here, and the occasional 10 pounder(the largest i've caught) will pop up. I only wish we had Halibut down here, I hear those are a blast. Don't know much about halibut fishing or cod fishing. Fill me in on it, i'm comming up to CT. for a wedding later on this year, maybe i'll bring my fishing pole. [cool]
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