Need coastal fishing help

I recently have placed my 14 foot jon boat on the sound on the coast of NC. I caught a flounder yesterday and made him my dinner but for the most part am having problems catching fish in the sound. Any lures or tricks to catching good fish in the sound?

I don't have a great deal of experience fishing and targeting any particular species in saltwater. That said, I've done extremely well with a lure called a Super Duper - it's a bent spoon with a funny sort of motion and it's done very well for me.

Is there a species you are hoping to target? I'd start by focusing on a particular species, then moving on from there.

time your fishing according to the tides.
try going out on an incoming tide and look for strucutre where predators can lie in wait to ambush prey that the tide brings in. it doesn't have to be visibile above the water. trenches, sunken logs, clumps of grass, etc. provide good ambush points. position your boat up current of the structure and cast downcurrent beyond the target strike zone, make the lure appear like it's struggling to fight the tide and you'd get hit. a no fail lure would be a kastmaster or similar spoon so that you can adjust the depth in search of the fish. then once you find the right depth, switch to a plug of your choice that swims in the depth of the strike zone. you can also drift a fresh or livebait towards the strike zone. do this again on the outgoing tide, but the incoming usually is better fishing. i'm no expert so take this advice with a sack of salt.
tight lines.

i have seen a poppin,noisy cork over a jighead with a plastic minnow used on several tv shows on differnt species. i would try it. also a zara spook could be fun.

If you are flounder fishing nothing will beat a tandem jig combo with fresh strips of fish as bait.

Join the jigs about 6" apart using a surgeons loop - then tip each one with a small strip of bluefish, shad, herring, etc. The strips should flutter and NOT spin.

If you cannot get strips of fresh, then squid or minnows will work as well

You want to use jigs "just" heavy enough to gently tick the bottom - the tandem looks like a small school of baits.


HERE IS HOW I MAKE THE RIGS:


1) 4' of 30 lb mono or floro

2) 2 jig heads or small bucktails (I like the Kaelins Jig Heads in 1/4 oz for anything less then 20 feet of water and no hard current) Again, let the condictions tell you how light or heavy - if you need to go heavier add it to the bottom jig step up to a 3/8 or 1/2 oz leaving the top jig at 1/4 or less.

3) Tie a surgeons knot at the middle of the section of leader
https://www.animatedknots.com/surgeonsloop/index.php


4) Make one of the "ends' about 6" shorter then the other. Tie your jigs on each end and tie your main line to the "loop"

DONE! Go catch'em up




BTW - try small soft plastics like flukes, (Fin-s) and curly tail grubs as well - trout love em!

We used to call the tandem rigs 'speck rigs' for speckled trout, redfish and flounder. Also, I used to fish the speck rigs with 2 sets of 2 on at a time. I made sure one was hanging lower and a different color than the rest, that one got bit 80% of the time.

The best investment I made when I was on the coastline was a cast net. Go to one of the bays and net up some live shrimp and put them under a popping cork. Fish that around any reef, grass, or structure and wait for the bites. In texas I used to catch mullet and use them for reds and specks. The redfish loved them on the reef, but I fished it off the bottom on a fishfinder rig and would get hung as much as I caught fish. But one nice red is worth 2-3 breakoffs!

We still call them spec rigs - figured tandem would be easier to understand.

And yes, try changing out color combos and such