# Full moon blues - tough flounder gigging



## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

The full moon always makes for more challenging flounder gigging conditions. When you couple that with a low, falling tide and SW winds, things can get downright tough. During the full moon, flounder will usually stay in deeper water, bury themselves deep in holes, and generally be more skittish. Tonight, we ran into all of these scenarios, keeping us from getting our limit. I put the boat on over 20 keeper flounder tonight, but the above scenarios kept us to only getting 17. We had several fish bedded in holes in deep water that were missed, and several others run away just before we could get close enough. There are plenty of fish still out there, but sometimes the conditions on a given night just seem to all be working against you. The next 5-7 days is going to be challenging for gigging, as the winds increase tomorrow and the full moon gets brighter under clear high-pressure skies. I will keep updates coming, good or bad, for the next 7 days. I hope the winds let me get in the trips on the next 7 nights, and the flounder make a showing during the full moon...

*6/10/2014 - Tough trip*
I had the Brian P. group of 4 on the boat tonight, including his 8 and 10 year old sons. Conditions were fair with 10-15mph SW winds, low tide, and full moon. The full moon and low tides had the fish in deeper water, moving further out as the night went on. The fish were very scattered tonight, and we had to cover a bunch of water to find them. The best areas were hard sand bottom near the mouths of lakes and creeks on the outgoing tide. We worked hard for 5 hours to find 17 flounder and 2 sheepshead. Not a limit tonight, but plenty of fun for the boys....

Capt. Rick Hammond
Night Stalker Guide Service - Rockport, Texas
Flounder Gigging - Bay Fishing - Duck Hunting
361-727-0045
www.nightstalkerguideservice.com

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## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

*Nice fish on a windy night*

*6/11/2014*
I had the Heath N. group of 5 on the boat tonight, including three 13 year old girls. Conditions were poor, with South wind at 20-25, full moon, and a low hard falling tide. On our first stop of the night, we gigged a couple fish real fast in clear water, and then it went absolutely dead. We moved to another area with dirty water and abundant baitfish. We found plenty of flounder here, but they were very hard to see, and we really had to move slow to gig these fish. Most of the fish were located in deeper water near oyster shell banks and creek mouths. The fish were really big tonight, with the average size being 18-20". We worked hard at it until 2am, and ended with 22 flounder.


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## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

*Easy night tonight*

*6/12/2014*
I had the Jodi D. group of 2 on the boat tonight. Conditions were poor with South wind at 25mph. We were very lucky tonight that clouds covered up the full moon. In the absence of bright moonlight, the fish were eager to head shallow. We gigged all of our fish tonight in 2-5" of water on hard sand and shell bottom, often running the boat aground to reach out to fish in shallower water. The water was very dirty tonight, but the shallow pockets and coves had clean water. We gigged our 10 flounder limit by 10:30pm. I'm glad we got our limit early, as a huge thunderstorm line was headed our way from the northwest.


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## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

*Friday night lights !!!*

*6/13/2014*
I had longtime customer Mike L. group of 4 on the boat tonight. Conditions were good, with a 10 mph ESE wind, low out going tide, and full moon rising 30 minutes after dark. Due to the light East winds, I started in an area I haven't been to in over 4 years, just to see if it was any good. Well..., we never left that area, as it was holding plenty of nice flounder, and some of the clearest water I have seen all year. The fish were scattered on all kinds of bottom: shallow, deep, sand, grass, and mud; it didn't seem to matter. We gigged our 20 flounder limit in 2 1/2 hours, with about half of the fish in the 17-20" range. The full moon rising a little later tonight made things better, with the fish more eager to head shallow. The next few nights should get even better, as the moon rises 45 minutes later each night. Unfortunately, the winds are forecast to increase over the next few days, making finding clear water a challenge on the coming nights...

Capt. Rick Hammond
Night Stalker Guide Service - Rockport, Texas
Flounder Gigging - Bay Fishing - Duck Hunting
361-727-0045
www.nightstalkerguideservice.com

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## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

*Things are getting better - full moon in retreat...*

The last couple nights have been much better for gigging, as the full moon is rising after dark and lower in the sky during the early hours of night. The flounder seem to be very hungry recently, moving around a lot and leaving lots of "beds" behind. There have been a bunch of fish in extremely shallow water on recent nights. Tonight, we had at least 10 fish that were in 3" of water or less, and had to reach far away from the boat to gig them. If the wind settles, the next 2-3 weeks should be awesome gigging, as the flounder seem to be everywhere this year.

*6/14/14*
I had the Brandon H. group of 4 on the boat tonight, as a fathers day present for their dad. Conditions were poor, with SE wind at 25 and very dirty water in most areas. For the first 2 hours, we rarely saw the bottom, gigging only 3 fish. As we continued further, the water cleared up nicely, and the flounder were up shallow on hard sand bottom. In the last hour, we gigged 17 more fish, ending with our 20 flounder limit by 11:45pm. The fish tonight were much smaller than I have been seeing recently, and all of them were between 14-16".


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## Redfish Rick (Aug 27, 2004)

*Windy, high tides, and dirty water tonight*

*6/15/2014*
I had the Chris T. group of 3 on the boat tonight, including his 12 year old son. Conditions were poor, with gusty SE winds at 15-25, and high tide. The water level tonight was up at least 8" from the previous night, completely shifting the low-tide pattern I have been on for almost a week. On our first stop, we found 4 flounder really quick, and then things went dead as we continued down the shore. After 2 hours, we only had 6 flounder in the boat. On my next stop, I tried a creek with good current movement. We quickly found 3 more fish on shallow sand with strong current moving. After seeing the fish keyed on spots with strong current, I made another move to an area with good current flow, knowing that I had tonight's pattern "dialed in". It didn't take us very long to gig our last 6 fish, as they were holding in strong current near sloughs and points. All of the fish tonight, were 16-19", much better size than last night. We ended with 15 flounder limit plus 1 sheepshead by 12:45am.

No pictures tonight, as everyone was tired and ready to go home when we got in...


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