FLOUNDER AROUND

At various times while fishing the south shore of the Cape; particularly around Ridgevale, Hardings and the inside of south beach, I witnessed small Flounders along the bottoms of sandy bars and at the mouth of inlets. My two boys, when young, would net these little fish and I had observed them on a number of occasions. I know that stripers will feed on flounders, but I never witnessed this first hand. At times I would see stripers feeding on "something" on the bottom and would see these little fish scooting around, but I did not put two and two together as there were sand eels in the mix as well. Sand eels have traditionally been the staple bait for stripers in and around Chatham for the last several years; excluding last season. I was determined to place a flounder fly in my box to have it available if I thought necessary or as that extra "go to" fly when nothing else worked. As I looked around for flounder flies I could find none. One I did see was tied by Mark Sedotti and was in Bob Veverka's book, "Innovative Flies". I think it was tied in the shape of a flounder with bucktail as the major material. Right off the bat, I started thinking about doing one that looked like a flounder. Again, this was an offshoot of my Crab Apple, which was originated to look as close as possible to the real thing. It was time to put the Merkins and McCrabs away. As I tied the Crab Apple with foam, it came to me that I could cut a light brown piece of foam in the shape of a flounder. But Then What?? I studied feathers quite a bit since I wanted my original flies to have feather colors instead of the predominant use of magic markers. I looked at the partridge and Ring Neck Pheasant which had the Crab Apple feathers, and other types. None seemed to give me the color I was looking for until I saw the Mallard Flank feathers - light brown or tan. That was the key, as they were somewhat transparent so as to catch the either the dark brown or light brown foam I was fooling around with and the epoxy use. I soon discovered that by laying the entire feather on a light coating of epoxy the feather ends would hang over, and there I had my fins as well. I even looked at Fall leaves for color combinations and felt I would leave that experiment on the brown crab carapaces. This is a very simple fly to tie, and two or three in the box as a standby might be the key. I tied this after this season, so have not had a chance to test it out. But I doubt very much that it will not work.

Hook: Long shank Varivas hook with wide gape, 2/0 or 3/0, two medium dumbbell eyes
Thread: White nylon
Body: Foam and Mallard flank feather, or feathers depending on the quality
Tail: Tan, Brown rabbit strip and a few sprigs of Pearl Crystal flash, White acrylic paint, 5 minute epoxy
Eyes: Small prismatic (pearl or gold)

Cut a light brown piece of foam to the "relative" shape of a small flounder. Then choose a good piece of Mallard Flank. You can use dark brown as well. The mallard flank should be brown, tan or even whitish with the multitude of small dark lines in the feather.

Set your hook up in the vice, and cover the entire shank with the thread, and tie in two Dumbbell eyes as shown. Now this is key: if you tie in only one, or tie it in at the hook eye, the fly will only drop to the bottom at it’s nose and have a strange hopping effect. You want this fly to be fished along the bottom in a type of hopping/gliding motion. This is not law. The weight can be put any way you want -- Experiment. This WILL NOT effect your casting, as you will generally be casting much heavier traditional flies. But the flat shape will have a tendency to float until your sinking line does its thing. With the extra dumbbell, it will sink belly first to the sand

Carefully put a thin layer of epoxy over the entire foam cut, and place the feather over so it gets placed and absorbs into the epoxy. You need to do this once. You can move it around somewhat, but you don’t want to get epoxy on the overhanging feather tips. Don’t worry about how much hangs over because you can trim it as I did with this one. Just be sure to put enough so there is sufficient overhang. This is a good quality mallard flank. You may only find second quality, which will require you to put in two smaller feathers or even three. Don’t worry about it -- just have in mind the general shape of the flounder. If you make a mistake at this point, just rip it off and start again. This is important because it will be key to the general appearance of the fly

Now trim the excess overhang, and make sure you cut it to the shape of the dorsal and anal fins. What you are shooting for is to trim as little as possible to have those light thin tips as the fins so you have the action of fluttering flounder fins…or movement to that effect.

As you can see, the fly is looking like a flounder. Take red and brown permanent Magic marker and dot the fly body as shown. Not a lot of marks. See the natural flounder -- different size but few dots.

Take the hook out of the vice and stick it thought the body. Be sure you measure where the entrance should be since you want the hook eye just in front of the nose. Seal the body down with a little super glue to secure it to the shank. You may wish to experiment by placing the hook gap at the rear of the fly instead of though the back, especially on larger flies, to insure a truer hook set.

Cut a short piece of Rabbit strip (preferably brown) and 5 or 6 sprigs of Pearl Crystal flash. Mix a small amount of epoxy, put the flash in, and then the rabbit strip, securing it to the bottom of the fly by the strip as shown.

Now mix more epoxy and lock in the shank and part of the loose rabbit strip up as close as you can to the end of the foam in back as shown. Let it set.

Now inverse the hook back to work on the body. Put in your eyes. There is some controversy on the eyes as "most" young flounder eyes migrate into the flounder position as they grow. However, I have seen the small flounders with the eyes in the flounder position. It could be the small ones are already mature. Mix a larger amount of epoxy and spread on to the top of the body. Do not rotate; Just a somewhat thick covering. As you do this, be careful to only spread it to the edges of the foam. Do not put it on the fins. With a light underneath, the fly will give you a clear view of the edges. Let it set.

Reverse the hook, and paint the bottom with white acrylic paint just as the belly would appear in a real flounder. This is brighter than the real one -- but what the heck. Let the paint set. And when all is dry, coat the epoxy on the top and the paint on the bottom with a generous coating of "Hard as Nails".

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author, John Morin, has spent most of his saltwater fishing time on Cape Cod; mostly in Chatham and the Monomoy area. He started tying two years ago and during that time has copied just about every saltwater fly around. As a result of this, he has started to create his own patterns which will continue to incorporate natural material, such a game bird feathers and various bucktails, including materials that play a large role in freshwater flytying.

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