Flounder Gigging
Ever since I started following Slappafish on Instagram, something that caught my attention is that they live in one of the last sparsely populated and wild areas of Florida. The fishing there is absolutely phenomenal. The only downside is that the water usually isn’t clear enough for sight fishing, which limits what we can do with fly rods, but you can still catch the absolute pants off redfish and trout, although it’s a lot of blind casting.
What surprised me most is that Brian and JerrieDee’s favorite way to harvest fish doesn’t even involve a rod and reel. It’s flounder gigging.
Being from Idaho, I had no idea what gigging was. From what I gathered, it’s a lot like spearfishing, except you’re not swimming; you’re walking in the water with a trident-style spear and looking for fish. This spring, the stars lined up, and I was able to be down there during flounder season.
So, how do you find and stick a fish that evolved to blend in and hide at the bottom? That’s the fun part.
We spent a couple of hours inspecting the ocean kayaks, ensuring everything was seaworthy and replacing a few worn hooks that secured the cargo netting. Every other kayak had a cooler, and each of us carried a gig and plenty of snacks. Along with Brian and JerrieDee, we were joined by their friend Katie, who was just as excited to get out on the water. As the sun set, we loaded five kayaks into the back of Brian’s truck and made the obligatory stop at the gas station for ice, a couple of Hunt Brothers pizzas, and energy drinks. Our last pickup was another friend Brian had met through TikTok. It’s wild how social media can connect total strangers like that. I actually met Brian through Instagram a few years back, and now we’re close friends. He’s the reason I first came down to Florida. With the crew together, we headed for a secret stretch of coast.
We rolled in around 10 PM, unloaded the kayaks, and spread out the gear. I’d be lying if I said the idea of wading in the ocean at night didn’t make me nervous. Just a week earlier, I’d been fly fishing for sharks in the Everglades, and we had seen some blacktips in the same area we’d be walking through. It was time to channel my inner Florida man.
The five of us pushed off from the beach and paddled a short way to a grassy bank while Brian and JerrieDee explained the plan. Once out of the kayaks, we tied leashes around our waists so our hands stayed free. Then we clipped flashlights to the ends of our gigs and spread out along the bank, side by side with a few feet between us. As we walked, we swept the lights back and forth, scanning for the telltale imprint flounder leave in the mud—or the bulge of an eyeball poking out of the bottom.
The tide was coming in, but with little wind or current, the water was surprisingly clear. Flounder have to be at least 14 inches to be legal, but we were aiming for 16 inches or better. The tricky part is you can’t release one if it’s too small, so you skip anything that isn’t obviously big enough. We had been walking for about five minutes in knee-deep water before I spotted the first fish of the night. I stopped and kept the light trained on the fish while JerrieDee walked over for a second opinion. She agreed it looked like a solid 17-incher, so I unclipped the flashlight from my gig, lined up, and hovered the business end just above the fish. They’d told me to hit it way harder than I thought I needed to, so I counted down and drove the gig down right behind its eyes. Clean shot. We dispatched it quickly and tossed it in the cooler. There was a primal satisfaction in getting it right on the first try.
We still had plenty of ground to cover, so we got back in formation and kept moving. Katie and JerrieDee turned up a few smaller fish that we let be, and eventually, our new friend Tom spotted a good one. Just like before, he called Brian over for a second opinion, and that fish made it into the cooler, too.
Stalking fish under a moonlit sky, with nothing but the water sliding around your legs, felt raw and primal—like stepping straight into an ancient hunt.
It was a productive session, and surprisingly fun. When we wrapped it up and paddled back to where we had parked we had a cooler full of flounder. After loading the kayaks back onto the truck, one of the vehicles wouldn't start, so we performed some diagnostics and found that the eye on the shift cable had disconnected from an arm on the transmission. A small plastic bushing had disappeared and left us dead in the water.
Since I'm the smallest one in the group, I slithered underneath and used a loose length of wire to jerry-rig the connection, allowing the car to be shifted to park, start, and then back into drive. There's nothing that a little motivation and some spare parts can't fix if you're in a pinch.
Then we went back to Slappafish camp, where they taught me how to fillet flounder! It was interesting because I'd never processed a flat fish like that, but Brian is a good teacher. Then we cut some of the fillets into chunks, breaded and deep-fried them to make some of the most amazing fish tacos in the world! It was an awesome experience, and some of the best-tasting fish I'd ever tried. 10/10 would gig again.