Wildside - Flounder Fishing

In pursuit of the humble flattie

© Zane Mirfin, wildside Column, In Pursuit of the Humble Flattie, Nelson Mail, 8 November 2008

Night Moves:  Zane Mirfin with another mid-winter Flounder dinner.

Call me a heathen but I love catching flounder. Sure, I get to go on some fantastic fishing and hunting trips each year to more exciting locations and for more exotic species, but when it comes to fish, flounder are one of my all-time favourites.

New Zealand has eight commercial flatfish species with the most common recreational catches including sand flounder, yellowbelly flounder and lemon sole, all of which grow up to a maximum length of about 45cm. Most flatfish species reach legal catchable size within two years living on a diet of small crustaceans such as sand hoppers, crabs, marine worms and small molluscs. Flatfish are a very important commercial and recreational resource because of their wide distribution in shallow coastal waters, where they are readily accessible to fishermen.

Flounder also taste great and are wonderful table fare cooked whole in a pan, rolled first in flour and then fried in a little butter or oil, with a twist of lemon and pepper. Picking away at a whole flounder is a great meal, with the succulent white flesh, crispy skin, and roe all being edible.

The second point I enjoy about flounder fishing is that it is generally close to home, so you can nip out for a few hours of fun without having to burn excessive rubber or diesel. More than 90 per cent of New Zealanders live within 40km of the coastline, so flounder-catching opportunities are never far away in coastal bays, lagoons and estuaries around the country.

Third, I enjoy the attraction of the tidal estuaries where there is always something happening and always something to enjoy, be it the birdlife, the tides, or the wide-open spaces. Out in the middle of the mudflats can give great perspective looking back at the excesses of humanity on the built up shores.

Maybe there is even a historical aspect to my love of floundering, with rich memories of floundering trips to Rabbit Island and Ruby Bay with my parents and my grandparents over many decades, something I have been enjoying with great success with my own children. My little girl, Rosie, even calls herself ‘‘Daddy’s Flounder Girl’’.

The flounder resource has held up well over the years, with good bags of fish still a reasonable expectation under favourable conditions, depending on location and time of year.

As with many fish species, there is more than one way to catch a flounder:

Spearing them at night is a lot of fun and as boys, my brother and I used to flounder at night with our father, using carbide lamps and later, submerged, battery-operated lights. Stalking shallow beach water and estuarine areas by night offers a totally different dimension to fishing. The fish life can be prolific, with mullet, eels and other creatures of the night more common than the skittish flounder, which can be difficult to see, camouflaged against the sand or mud.

Spear fishing is never as successful as net fishing but sure is a lot of fun. One of my childhood memories is lying in bed after a successful late-night sortie, listening to the beheaded and gutted flounder still flapping in the fridge.

Net fishing is always the most successful way to catch flounder. Drag netting off beaches is great social fishing where teams of participants take turns at hauling the net along shallow coastal beaches. Drawing the short straw and being allocated the ‘‘deep end’’ on a cool autumn morning is a brass monkey adventure.

Nets called beach seines can also be used, being taken offshore by dinghy, and then hauled back ashore by two teams using ‘‘warp’’ ropes. This was the preferred method of my grandfather and we had some great catches on those magic summers long ago.

In recent years, my flounder fishing method of choice has been set netting, where the net is set from my dinghy
using grapnel hooks, chain, ropes and floats at each end of the net. My preferred net configuration is a nine mesh high net that can be used anywhere including the Marlborough Sounds which have special netting regulations.

Flounder move with the tide in their search for food and swim close to the bottom so there is no advantage in using a higher net which only catches current and excess weed. Big mesh is also an advantage and I prefer 15-17.5cm mesh so as to only catch decent-sized flounder which are wedged at the widest point on their flat body. I normally just fish the first half of the incoming tide in channels and estuaries before currents become too strong.

In extreme cases, nets can turn inside out or become clogged with weed. One day out in the Waimea Estuary we caught more sanitary pads from the Bell Island sewage plant than flounder.

In open coastal water, it is possible to catch flounder at any stage of the tide. As with any fishing method, experience and knowledge is useful in obtaining good bags of flounder – anyone who says that catching fish in a net takes no skill doesn’t know what they are talking about.

Flounder can be caught throughout the year, although they are at their most plentiful in spring, summer and autumn. They are a bountiful local resource and are a popular recreational fish throughout the country.

Some days, too, there can be lots of competition out on the water. On a recent floundering trip, my father Stuart and friend Graham Reburn squared off in their boat against my brother Scott and me in our rubber boat. The old guys were like something out of the TV programme Last of the Summer Wine with their antics and banter.

As a boy, I can remember my father bemoaning unemployed guys shooting all the deer while he had to work during the week. The thought did occur to me that these days, we workers have to compete against all the retired guys catching all the flounder.

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