Tidelines – June 20, 2013
Tony Del and I were already excited to be meeting up with Capt. Josh Savage, of Yellow Dog Charters, at the Wrightsville Beach boat ramp at 9:00 pm for a night of flounder gigging, but the interest took an unexpected leap forward when Josh asked before parking the truck, “You guys want to try and shoot a flounder using bow and arrow?”
My last time flounder gigging was at least 12 years ago, so just the opportunity to revisit that nighttime experience on the water would have easily been enough to carry me through the night, but somehow using a bow and arrow, especially when flounder bow hunting wasn’t even a thought in my head, had me full attention.
Josh’s 17’ Carolina Skiff had a smart setup for flounder gigging, with a Minn Kota mounted in the dead center of the bow, so he could stand on one side and the person with a gig on the other. The LED lights Josh used was also key to our success. He had four sets of double light units, with each unit putting out 2,000 lumens but only running on 2.1 amps per unit. This lets him run all four sets off of two 12 volt batteries, and they’ll run for about 24 hours off a single charge.
The LEDs mounted on either side of us not only lit up the water column, but since they ran off of batteries we didn’t have to battle the noise of a generator. Even the quiet generators on the market can’t compete with silence, and it was that silence that enhanced our trip in innumerable ways—easy to talk and hear each other, easy to hear feeding fish and the other natural sounds on the water, and easy to relax and shut down and forget about the busy daytime world.
The run south was short, and we targeted very familiar waters, the same waters that see a whole lot of boat traffic during the day. Once Josh selected a grass bank to start, he nosed in and it took less than a minute before we were covering ground. Immediately we saw encouraging signs—vacant flounder pockets, the sand trails of a spooked flounder, and several undersized flounder—but the action was slow this night, so it took a while before we came over a nice-sized flounder just off a shelly bottom in about 2’ of water.
I was the first one up and brought the gig down as I had been instructed. I first broke the plane of the water just a little with the gig to make sure I was accounting for water refraction (you don’t want to aim high or even straight, but rather low, due to refraction), and then brought the gig down on the fish right behind the gills and eyes.
Josh had me turn the fish down the boat, and then I simply swung the fish up and in. It was official. I had brought in my first gigged flounder in over a decade, and it measured out at 19”.
Though Tony had been familiarizing himself with the bow and arrow while I had been standing in the front, he was now up on deck with the gig. Our thought was to each get at least one flounder on the gig, and then move to target the bow and arrow. We hadn’t moved very far from the spot of the 19” fish before we came up on something that immediately got Josh excited.
He brought the boat to a quick stop beside a dark shadow that was longer, wider, and higher than our first fish. Tony followed Josh’s same instructions, and once the fish stopped flopping around the console (coming precipitously close to the gunnel edge a couple of times), it measured out to 23”.
Tony and I had both successfully used the four-prong gig, so it was on to the bow and arrow. The bow was a youth compound bow that Josh had picked up from Dick’s Sporting Goods, and the reel was a simple and cheap outfit that basically kept the bow tethered to a pronged arrow. We moved along covering different types of bottom, everything from shelly to sandy to grassy, but the wind was starting to affect water clarity and we were beginning to think about calling it a night before Josh spotted a flounder pointing into the grass.
This one was smaller than our two previous fish, but Josh with certainty (he commercial gigs as well as books gigging charters) identified it as a 15 to 15.5” fish, so we made the turn and took up position. I pulled back, aimed low, and let the arrow fly for a direct hit. I was now an official flounder bow hunter.
Capt. Josh Savage, of Yellow Dog Charters, books gigging trips (as well as rod and reel inshore trips) throughout the year, but like most he favors the spring, summer, and fall. You can book your own quiet, but action-filled, night on the water by calling him directly at (910) 578-0569.
Or if you want to get into flounder gigging yourself, you should check out the LED lights Josh uses, made by Michael Pearce, at www.floundergigginglights.com.
If you call Josh, make sure you ask about the bow and arrow before leaving the boat ramp.
