Thanksgigging Report

Two of my fish from this year's annual Thanksgigging trip.

      Happy belated Thanksgiving everybody!  I hope everyone was able to enjoy the day with family and friends.  Like most people, I enjoyed the traditional Thanksgiving meal with my family.  Unlike a lot of people, I did not enjoy the tradition of sitting on the couch in an overstuffed stupor watching football.  Instead, I continued one of my personal traditions, Thanksgigging!  For the past five years, some of my siblings, my friends, and I have been going out after Thanksgiving dinner to hunt for flounder.  Last year, we got skunked, but with the run being so good for the past two weeks, I was hopeful that this year it would be a success.

      My brother, Greg, pulled up a tidal chart, and not knowing how to read it, or how the tides related to gigging, showed it to me.  My personal experience has always been that gigging on a slack tide is a waste of time, and moving tides produce fish.  However, the question of whether the rising tide or falling tide is the best tide varies depending on the specific situation.  Normally I like the rising tide because the fish will move right up into shallow (sometimes ankle deep) water to feed where they are easily accessible.  After the tide starts to fall the fish seem to retreat to deeper water.  In the late spring and summer, a rising tide at East Pass is especially nice because it brings water from the Gulf, which tends to be a little clearer than the water of Choctawhatchee Bay.  However, with it being the fall run, the flounder aren’t feeding much.  They are mostly concerned with getting out to the Gulf to spawn, a feat that is much easier when they swim out with the falling tide.  So, flounder movement should pick up shortly after high tide.  Plus, the water in the bay is usual pretty clear this time of year because the algae suspended in the water column die off with the cooler temperatures and shorter day lengths.  So, I decided that given the specifics of the situation, I wanted to be at the pass during a falling tide.  According to Greg’s chart, high tide was at 8:42pm so we decided to arrive at around 8:30pm so we could get set and hit the water as the tide started to fall.

      We got to the pass right around 8:30pm and to my horror there were other people already out there.  I could see one wader with a headlamp working his way back to our parking lot and a jon-boat rigged up with a generator and halogen lights hanging off the side.  Our lawn tractor battery connected to a halogen headlight sealed in PVC looked like garbage compared to this boat, which seemed to have more activity happening on deck than the USS Nimitz.  I respect these types of guys and their ingenuity, but gigging off a boat like just isn’t my style (find out more about different ways to gig here).  I like to keep things simple.  We wondered how the other giggers had fared.  If they caught a bunch of fish would that be good?  The shallow water accessible to those who are wading is only a narrow strip along the shoreline.  If they had a bunch of fish, it could mean that there wouldn’t be any left for us to gig.  On the other hand, it could also mean that fish were piling up on the flats, and we would see plenty.  If they had no fish, it could be possible that they missed a bunch and they were out there waiting for us.  It could also mean that the fish weren’t running like I thought, and we would go home empty handed.  Eventually I just decided not to talk to them.  I would base my expectations for the night on the knowledge I already had; the flounder were running, and the falling tide was the time to be out there to find them.  We would have a good night.

       We walked for a few minutes and I could see the other wading gigger, who was heading back, approaching us.  About a hundred yards remained between us and we were closing the gap.  The shoreline behind him had obviously been thoroughly searched.  I wanted to find a fish before we reached him because once we passed him, we might not see any for a while.  Right in front of me, I saw a flounder that looked to be about 17 inches.  I had already caught some fish earlier in the week so I decided to let my brother get the kill.  I pointed out the outline of the flounder in the sand and he moved in for the kill.  He quickly planted the gig in the sand next to the flounder and it bolted off!  Greg had acted too quickly and paid for it.  Flounder are pretty camouflage but that can be used against them.  They can be hard to find, but once you do find one, they usually stay put which gives you time to properly aim and secure a kill.

      I was a little frustrated but not enough to make me angry.  I wanted Greg and my friend, John, to have a good time and they seemed to be enjoying the night.  So, as long as we didn’t miss every fish I would be okay.  The only thing I had to worry about was passing the other gigger.  He was now very close, undoubtedly saw our commotion, and would probably expect to see us with a nice fish.  It turned out he didn’t have any either, and we got to laugh about Greg’s aim.  He turned out to be pretty nice.  We compared rigs for a little.  His rig was a dive let taped to a dowel.  It wasn’t as bright as mine but it was simple and very light.  I liked it.  He asked about my rig and wanted to know how to make one.  I guess I’ll have to write about that in future post.  When we parted he said “It should start to pick up right about now.”  He was right.

      About two minutes later, Greg spotted a flounder swimming along the bottom.  Remembering his mistake just a few minutes earlier he instructed, “Get it John!”  John quickly stabbed the fish just behind the head and landed our first fish of the night.  It was a decent fish.  Had Greg redeemed himself?  I don’t think so.  The flounder were moving.  This meant that even if the early bird giggers had gigged all the fish, more flounder would move in to replace them.  Shortly after that, I found a smaller fish.  He was a legal keeper, but nothing to brag about.  I wanted to get a video of a fish getting gigged, but I didn’t want to spook a nice fish.  So I decided to try it with the small fish.  It came out great.  It was a perfect head shot that instantly subdued the fish. 

      Headshots are great for multiple reasons: (1) you can quickly kill the fish if you get its brain, (2) there is more bone structure in the head which means the gig is less likely to slip out and allow escape, and (3) it prevents holes and sand from getting into the fleshy part of the fish which will later become fillets.

You can clearly see the bone structure around the head of this flounder.  I took this at the Smithsonian's Skeletal Diversity Exhibit.  It was awesome.

       We had some other exciting moments too.  While trying to fit a 19.5” flounder in the mesh bag that we use as our stringer, the fish slipped out of my hands.  He was on the shore but quickly flopping back to the water.  Now, John and I are both quick to act, but we think differently.  I thought to stab the fish while John, who did not have a gig in hand, thought to step in it.  You can probably already picture the outcome.  John ended up with a gig between his toes, and the fish kept on flopping.  Then Greg kicked him up on the beach, picked him up and stuffed him in the bag.  Greg had earned his redemption.

John was a pretty good sport about getting gigged in the foot. Maybe he is really tough or maybe he was reminiscing about when we were kids and somebody accidently shot me with a pellet gun.

      At one point, John and I both felt something hit our legs.  It felt like a fish but I didn’t see anything.  I quickly backtracked and spotted a Gulf flounder burying itself in the sand.  I missed the headshot on that guy but still bagged another fish for the night.

      Later on, when my light started to fade, I noticed a flounder right in front of my foot.  I almost stepped on him.  I decided to let John take this kill.  John got a glimpse of the fish and, like Greg, stuck the gig right in the sand next to the fish.  I watched him bolt off.  Maybe John missed the fish, or maybe he was secretly aiming for my foot, in retaliation, and his conscience caused him to change his trajectory at the last second.  In either case, his excitement got the best of him, but it happens to the best of us.  Plus, now Greg could make fun of John, but not for long.  A few steps later, Greg spotted another flounder resting ahead of us.  This time he took his time, but he took a little too much time.  The flounder spooked and darted off never to be seen again. 

      At this point another boat pulled up.  However, this was no carefully constructed floundering boat.  In fact, it was a V-hull that was just floundering around in very shallow water with a halogen spotlight.  We got a fish, they moved closer.  We got another fish and they moved ahead of us.  We got a third fish and they just drove off.  I hope they ended up with some fish, but there methods didn’t seem very effective.  Oh well, we all have to learn.  A few years ago, I wasn’t very good either.

      The last fish of the night was a classic.  We had just finished a conversation about those patches of sand that look like flounder that actually turn out to be flounder.  I just turned off my light and started walking to the car.  Greg spotted rock with his headlamp and went closer to examine it.  John said “It looks like a rock,” and then poked it.  He pulled his gig up and there was flounder on the end.  We ended up finishing the night with 9 fish( ranging from 13” to 19.5”), some important lessons, and some great stories.

John and Greg proudly display our haul for the night.  We gigged 9 flounder and 1 human.