Drifting is the most common method of summer flounder fishing, as it allows you to cover more ground. Once you discover where the fish are holding, you can narrow the drift accordingly. Make a drift through the hot zone, then circle around and repeat. A good drift will commonly carry the boat over a drop-off, sandbar, ledge or through a channel or inlet.
In a drop-off situation, you want to “walk” or hop your bait or lure along the sloping bottom as you drift. The key is to keep your rig on the bottom, which means you must let out line as the water deepens, or reel it in as it shallows. Wind and/or current may conspire to make the drift too fast. In this case, a sea anchor or five-gallon bucket tossed over the side to slow the drift can be useful. Conversely, on calm days with little or no current, the drift speed can be increased with the aid of a trolling motor.
Live and dead baits can also be used for catching flounder from the shore or at anchor. In this case, the baits are usually left to sit on the bottom until a flounder happens along. If you prefer a more active approach to flounder fishing, you can cast out and retrieve your baits and lures by hopping them over the bottom. Chum can also be used to lure flounder to an anchored boat.
Slow-trolling is yet another way to catch flounder, and allows you to cover a lot of territory in a short amount of time. With this technique, jigs, live baits or deep-diving plugs are pulled slowly behind the boat, so that they occasionally bump the bottom.
