Frankenstein Noodle Rod

[DamnFish]

So I have a crazy idea! I’m going to Frankenstein a 7/8 weight fly rod into a noodle rod and pair it with a daiwa ballistic 3000H. I added 17 inches of rod but and balanced it just about 6 inches ahead of the reel

Anyone ever try this? I know the guides might choke the line so I bought a set of airwave guides, just in case. Hoping to fish the surf at Jones and RM and maybe the sound. What weight bucktails / lures you think I can go up to? I’m thinking no more than an ounce. Thought it might be fun for small blues, schoolie stripers, fluke and maybe the occasional kingfish

 

[Leprechaun]

I had a friend many, many years ago that built a flounder spinning rod out of a fly rod blank. He liked it for its "pencil-lead" thin tip. He claimed he could feel a flounder breathing on his bait, and I believed him. Sort of. This was way before the common use of graphite rods. In fact I think the only graphite rods at that time were hyper-expensive Fenwicks - and those were not known for their longevity.

We used to take my Uncle's 24' Wellcraft AirSlot way up into the back bays, fishing such spots as the Merrick "S"-turn, the northern end of Haunt's Creek, up against the east bank, and my favorite of all - "Hole in the Bay" off Baldwin. That spot was a deep-ish (like 6’) “hole” that was surrounded by very shallow sand and mud flats. The only way to fish it was to go there on an incoming half-tide, and to do even that required tilting up Uncle's twin outdrives, until the props were just about in the water. We couldn't fish there on anything but an incoming - as being there any other time would guaranty having to wait thru an entire day's tide turn because there was no water under the boat to get out.

Anyway, we would KILL them there, the good amount of tide in that area had scoured the mud out of the bottom of that spot - leaving hard sand. I know everyone (including me) was always looking for soft, fertile black mud to fish flounder, but this spot frequently had the fish stacked up, one on the other, or so it seemed. My buddy liked to use his converted glass fly rod in such places, and seeing it take a huge parabolic bend on a fat 2lb flounder was certainly something I'll never forget.

Man, them was the days - I'm glad that I got to fish back then, but it saddens me that we'll never see its like again. What a loss our inshore flounder fishing has been.

 

[Aquarius]

..............., fishing such spots as the Merrick "S"-turn, the northern end of Haunt's Creek, up against the east bank and my favorite of all - "Hole in the Bay" off Baldwin............

That brings back very fond memories. There were a few spots in Merrick Bay and right in Freeport Creek minutes from the dock. You would be surrounded by rental boats from Nick's Fishing Station.

The "S" turn is no longer a buoyed channel. The south end got too shallow. The bay shack by my spot in Broad Creek is long gone, way before Sandy.

It is almost criminal that those fish are totally gone.

 

[Leprechaun]

Aq - Did you ever fish fluke in Ned's Creek? On the incoming we used to drift fluke from its western end, right past the Bay House, to the shallow flats on its east end. That's the first place I ever bucktailed fluke, and that had to be at least 45 years ago. Never got a biggie in there, but there were times that they were really stacked up, to maybe 5lbs, right in front of the old bay house, where the little sub-channel that went north was.

I recall my Uncle resting his tiny Abu 1500C baitcaster/Frankie Dee "Conolon" custom rod setup up against the gun'nel while he turned around to do something - and having a nice schoolie bass pull it right out of the boat. He cried about losing that setup for years afterwards. Never really got over it, until I built him a replacement, out of a little "S-glass" Lami blank, and gifted him a Shimano Bantam reel to go on it. That was the first low-profile baitcaster that I'd ever seen, and was really a ton of money for a freshman college boy to come up with, back in 1973. But I did it anyway, because I loved the guy. Taught me all about boats, fishing, the Bay, and a bit about girls too. One of the funniest people I've ever known.

Did you know that with some care you could travel from the east end of Ned's down to the north end of Haunt's, if the tide was up, you went VERY slow, and you had a lookout up on the foredeck, directing the helmsman right and left - so to navigate around the many sand flats in that area?

Funny how all this is fresh in my memory, yet I cannot for the life of me recall the names of clients that I met only a week or two ago. Eh, I guess it catches up with all of us, sooner or later. . .

 

[OVERBORED]

I had a friend many, many years ago that built a flounder spinning rod out of a fly rod blank. He liked it for its "pencil-lead" thin tip. He claimed he could feel a flounder breathing on his bait, and I sort of believed him. This was way before the common use of graphite rods. In fact I think the only graphite rods at that time were hyper-expensive Fenwicks - and those were not known for their longevity.

We used to take my Uncle's 24' Wellcraft AirSlot way up into the back bays, fishing such spots as the Merrick "S"-turn, the northern end of Haunt's Creek, up against the east bank, and my favorite of all - "Hole in the Bay" off Baldwin. That spot was a deep-ish (like 6’) “hole” that was surrounded by very shallow sand and mud flats. The only way to fish it was to go there on an incoming half-tide , and to do even that required tilting up Uncle's twin outdrives, until the props were just about in the water. We couldn't fish there on anything but an incoming - as being there any other time would guaranty having to wait thru an entire day's tide turn because there was no water under the boat to get out.

Anyway, we would KILL them there, the good amount of tide in that area had scoured the mud out of the bottom of that spot - leaving hard sand. I know everyone (including me) was always looking for soft, fertile black mud to fish flounder, but this spot frequently had the fish stacked up, one on the other, or so it seemed. My buddy liked to use his converted glass fly rod in such places, and seeing it take a huge parabolic bend on a fat 2lb flounder was certainly something I'll never forget.

Man, them was the days - I'm glad that I got to fish back then, but it saddens me that we'll never see its like again. What a loss our inshore flounder fishing has been.

You brought back great memories. We followed the bay migration from Parsonage early on to Zach's around mother's day and on to the piers and finally the coast guard station around memorial day. Sure miss that fishing. ?

 

[Leprechaun]

Did you ever fish the incoming for flounder at the Big Meadowbrook during the early/mid Summer? Some of the best bay bottom fishing I've ever seen, for quality winter flatties. The trick was to motor up to the bridge's stanchions, just to the north of the main channel and use our custom "bridge hooks" slipped in-between the square wooden protector and the concrete bridge abutment. Can't do that anymore, because they now fill that space with a poured mortar of some sort. Probably get a ticket for tying to the bridge anyway. Times have certainly changed.

In any case, no serious bay bass fisher would dream of leaving the dock without his set of home-made stainless steel bridge hooks. Back then clam bellying bass at the bridges was a very big thing. A subject upon which I could write about 20 posts - but bay bassing is not what this is about. This post is about "summertime winter flounder."

So anyway, we would fish only the incoming, because at that time of year (Late June thru July) the bay would warm up quite a bit and so these fish would only respond once the cooler ocean water made its way thru the Inlet and into the bay. It didn't have to travel very far - what is it, a mile or so from the back of the inlet to the Big M?

We would "pin" into the bridge, drop back to just behind it, and use fresh skimmers for bait. Cut the lips from the shell, and the foot of course, and then toss the rest of the opened clam with its belly remains up under the bridge, far enough that it would hit bottom right under or just behind the boat - simple and very effective chumming. At first the bites would come slowly - mostly bergals, pin sea bass and tiny flounda to start, but as the tide built it would shift over to all keeper flounder - and I mean BIG ones.

The tide always pulled hard there, requiring the use of 6oz sinkers to hold, and some of the larger flounder would always get ripped from the hook, between their head shaking and the pull of the tide. We usually lost some real hum-dingers fishing this way. Heartbreaking, but expected.

I don't recall any "50 fish per tide" trips, but counts in the high 20's were certainly doable, with the mombo size of the fish making it well worth the effort. The nice thing was that the flounder bit no matter the boat traffic - which would be considerable on weekend afternoons. The 5mph speed limit made it tolerable to fish there and we normally worked through the tide to HW slack.

I always found it amusing that the flounder we were boxing were normally a good bit larger (and much fatter) than the fluke that the boats drifting around the bridges would keep - remember, back then the fluke limit was 14", and the flounder we were getting were MUCH nicer than that piddle-squit size.

Like I said, those were the days . . .

 

[flounderbound]

Yes,Lep,I used to rent a skiff from Ed`s fishing station and motor over to the big M.Slack tide was the best as my chum would go straight down between the pilings. I used to see the Capt .Lou catching thousands of flounder,so they said ,at the coastguard station. I preferred the meadowbrook for big flounder. I caught my personal best flounder of 3 3/4 lbs in the end of June.Those were the days.

 

[captmike28]

Just so you know, the West end wasn't the only place that held winter flounder during the summer months. Back in the early 70's my ride was a 16' Aluminum Starcraft with an 18hp pull start outboard. No electronics at all, not even a cheap sounder.
One day during that time frame I was alone on a very foggy August morning and had launched from the Gull Pond ramp, just east of the Greenport jetty. I had hoped to get out into the Sound or even Gardiners for some Fluking. Well, the fog was so thick all I could do was inch my way along the shoreline all the way to Orient Point. The fog there was so bad I said to myself that's as far as I am going if I hope to get home the same day. So, I dropped anchor in about 15' of water just south and a little east of the Cable Crossing shack at Orient that takes the phone cables over to Plum I. I happened to have a dozen Sandworms that I had frozen from a spring trip and were now extra soft but still viable baits.

Much to my surprise I began catching nice winter Flounder, anywhere from 3/4 to almost 2# in size. No huge numbers but, as I recall at least 12-15 very nice thick fish on any given day. We had some terrific Flounder fishing throughout the Peconics, LI Sound and off Gardiners I. in those days both spring and fall runs, but I had never caught them before in August. I guess the amount of flush the eastern Sound gets right at Orient is just enough to keep the water temps in a range that was comfortable for those fish to spend all summer in that location.

Naturally, after making this "great discovery" I worked that spot hard for the next few years throughout the season. Of course, on the bright sunny days people quickly found out what was going on and the spot got a ton of pressure, eventually depleting this once terrific area, at least of winter flounder.

One other amusing part of fishing this location. As I said earlier, I would anchor very close to the underwater phone cable and, on more than one occasion, my anchor would snag the cable. If I pulled with all of my strength, I could actually pull the cable off the bottom to within about a foot or two of the surface. At least I was smart enough to realize it would not be a good idea to go overboard and try to free the anchor for fear of getting caught and dragged to the bottom. So, I developed this technique where I would coil a bunch of anchor line at my feet, lift the anchor and cable as close to the surface as possible, then let it free spool back to the bottom. More often than not, when the anchor hit the bottom with a bounce the flukes would come free, In fact I think after snagging this cable at least 6 or 7 times over the years I only had to actually cut the rode once.
Yes, those were the "good old days"!

 

[OVERBORED]

As a kid, I remember going to 3 mile harbor and renting a skiff with my dad. So one day, my dad and I had a bunch of nice flounder up to 2.5lbs in the harbor. Along comes a guy who fished Gardiners. Weighed in a legit 5.6lb flounder. The station guy turned to me and said. " son, thats what we call a snowshoe flounder". Still the biggest Flounder I have ever seen. Great fishing around Gardiners back then.

I remember all that great bay fishing in the JB area especially the togging at the bridges.

You talked about fishing bellys at the bridge. In those years (late 80s) we would follow the clam boat off of Riis park. Catch all the bass you wanted. Had to stay alert as they always made unexpected sharp turns! Sometimes I thought Clarence would do that on purpose.

Great memories for sure.

 

[captmike28]

You are quite right, Overbored, about the fantastic winter Flounder fishing we used to enjoy off Gardiners I. from the 70's through the late 80's. Tobaccolot Bay was famous and the fish we caught there were a magnificent shade of dark red on their backs matching the thick kelp in the area that gave this location its name. I never saw a 5# Flounder there but we did catch many 3#+ fish there and even a few that scale weighed just over 4#.

During that same time frame when we fished by the Hooter Bouy just SW of Block I. we would catch nice school sized Cod in April and May on a high hook and also put on a large "Chestertown" hook near the sinker for some real "snowshoe Flounder" on that spot. Saw 2 during those years that pushed the scale just past 5#.

The only other time in my life when I saw truly large winter Flounder was also in the early 70's when I went on summer vacations to Booth Bay Harbor, Maine every year for about 8 years straight. At that time the Cod and Pollock fishing was off the charts there. On one of those trips I actually snagged a 4.5# Flounder on a diamond jig meant for the Cod.

 

[OVERBORED]

Never ceases to amaze me how I'll talk to some very accomplished fishermen about flounder fishing and the eyebrows are raised and the stories start flowing. Great stuff!

Don't know what you have until its gone!

 

[george]

This is an excellent thread. I cut my teeth flounder fishing in Great South Bay. It was starting to slow in those days and when word got out about a pod of fish there'd be numerous boats on it. You never wanted a Capt of one of the many partyboats around to see you catch one. If the did you were quickly surrounded by the fleet.

It is very sad how that changed for the worse and we will never get back those fish again.