What not to do on the first trip of the year....

tod osier

tod osier

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I can just hear it, "Whopee, open water ahead!" It is as it appears, boat 8' up on a gravel bar. I like the motor position, looks like they will need some prop work. I assume they hit at high tide and the tide dropped. With the weather we had this weekend I hope they got the boat Saturday night before the winds and storm tides.



duck dork: "Duh, you got chum I can eat?"



jen with the big winter flounder of the day. These quys used to swarm into the harbors of the NE in spring. Caught on sandworms, chumed with smashed steamer clams we dug at the bottom of the tide.



these days a catch of four in a tide is not too bad. (Hey, I found that stabil I was looking for, right by my box of decoy weights).


 
Nice! I watched a guy a few summers ago rake the sandbar by Wingersheek Beach up here in Gloucester, then promptly get stuck on it as the tide dropped. The boat was one of those nice auto-piloted, $100K sail boats. Bonehead!

My son caught a beauty 16" flounder last summer on one of those Berkely power worms. I thought he snagged the seaweed as the fish was only about 5 feet from shore. The flounder were coming up close to catch sand fleas in the weeds and rocks. He has become quite the fisherman and regularly catches more schoolies than me. What is the limit on flounder down there? Right now we can catch 4, but I think it goes up to 8 or 10 afer May 1. They are fun to catch and are awesome to eat. Fried flounder sandwiches with homemade tartar and some nice big steak fries. Yum!

Nate
 
Lee,

There is a lot of meat. You get 4 fillets. Two top (thicker) to bottom. The guts are not where you would think, the vent is right by Jens thumb in the photo on those fish the gut area is right behind the head and 2 x 2. They clean pretty quick once you get good. The summer flounder we catch are bigger adn you can get a nice meaty fillet of a 5 pounder.
 
Cool. I've tried to eat flounder I caught on the west coast here and they tasted like fried sea mud. When I come down east you guys will have to show me how to do it properly.

Mike
 
Hi Howard,

I live in Massachusetts, also known as Massatwoshits, or "Land of the Liberals."

The summers and fall make up for the other BS we have to put up with during the year. Are you near Portsmouth? My grandparents are down that way and I have family in Virginia Beach also.

Nate
 
I agree with Mike. I don't like flounder. In my opinion they have a bland muddy taste. I give the fillets to friends.-j
 
I've never met anyone who didn't LOVE flounder. I grew up on the south shore near Boston and that's what we grew up on - catching and eating them. They are butt ugly but incredibly good white meated fish.

Tod, was I dreaming the other day when i read somewhere that you'd do aluminum over wood ? I'm interested in the reasoning.

Thanks, another good post.
 
Before we pull out the Blue and Grey uniforms lets talk a bit and make sure we are on the same page. The flounder the New England guys are talking about is the Winter Flounder. It's range is from Canada down to the Carolinas. We could be talking the same species but I'm not sold on that. The winter flounder up here are generally caught in water temperatures between 35 & 60 degrees F with some taken to 70 F but they are the rarity. When I googled flounder fishing in Virginia I couldn't find seasons or size limits for the winter flounder - An oversight or simply too few to note? The pictures were of left faced big mouthed flounder looking like our fluke or "summer Flounder" Taken out of our 50 - 65 degree waters even fluke taste superb.

Jason, I'm not sure if you've ever had home fried fresh cold water winter flounder but if you had I suspect you would find it palatable. It's so sweet it's almost like eating candy. I've never had a hint of mud flavor. Maybe it's like catfish. Taken from stagnate, warm, muddy, water they can have a "muddy" flavor. Farm raised cats can be a bit plain in flavor. But a fresh cat taken from clean cold water is awfully tasty.

Scott
 
Scott--Winters show up in the bay when temps cool down in the fall/winter, not many though, see a few now and then. Maybe a trade is in order? Its not the water, I have caught them 30miles offshore in 100ft of water, bottom temp ~10C. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
 
there is! I may just need to sink a few worms this weekend after the post-flood cleaning chores are done. Jen and I had a fish-n-chip dinner a couple months ago and winter flounder was the guest of honor...
 
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