Killing a flounder

Hi Guys,

I'm a wimp. I tried spear fishing last year and loved the hunt. But when the tau tog didn't die after I speared it and rammed my knife through its head I felt really guilty, in fact it swam off my knife and crawled away to die, but I found it again and got it into my keep bag which the poor thing valiantly tried to escape from (despite the fact that it's inards were also trying to escape from inside the fish). I admit it, I'd be a vegetarian if I had to kill for meat.

But having said that on a recent dive I was very close to a huge flounder (at least 2 feet in length) and I was sooo tempted to stick my knife in it. Afterall I do like to eat fish. BUT, here's the question...I want to kill the fish quickly, no swimming off my knife like the last one did. I know that for flat fish you need to have the knife perpendicular to the fishes spine otherwise they can swim away and cut themselves in half. I also realise that fish are pretty much like chickens in terms of not needing much of a brain to be alive. Any advice?

To stone a fish you have to cut the spine or hit the brain. Harder to take with a knife but can be done. Try to get them in the head & keep them pinned down, watch out for their teeth when you grab them. The gills are safe to handle, but they hanve a mouthfull of teeth.

I tried to get te other one in the brain as well! I guess I missed. In the case of a flounder, I"m guessing the best spot would be to hit it between the eyes?

I need to section one's head. I'm pretty sure the brain is a bit behind the eyes.

However, right in the eyes might work pretty good. I often string fish (not flounder) through the eyes, and even if they're still kicking pretty good, that seems to shut them down. Worth trying just to see how it works.

Better, get a simple poke pole. Take the rubber off it. Jab the flounder. You then have options. If you use a stringer, keep the fish between your hand & the barbed tip (a 2 bard spinner style tip is great for this), run the stringer through the gills & mouth. Once strung just slide it up the pole & off the butt.

Or, rig the pole with a line. Some guys like 4 to 6 feet or more, I like it shorter. Tie one end to the pole. Tie the other to a small brass clip. Slide the fish off the pole onto the line. With the 1st fish, take the brass clip & clip onto the line between the fish & pole, take the slack out. Now this fish will stop others from getting off, so you just stick them & slide them off the pole onto the line. No extra stringer needed.

Either way, doesn't matter if the fish is stoned or not. It isn't getting away.

DrSteve:

But having said that on a recent dive I was very close to a huge flounder (at least 2 feet in length) and I was sooo tempted to stick my knife in it. Afterall I do like to eat fish. BUT, here's the question...I want to kill the fish quickly, no swimming off my knife like the last one did. I know that for flat fish you need to have the knife perpendicular to the fishes spine otherwise they can swim away and cut themselves in half. I also realise that fish are pretty much like chickens in terms of not needing much of a brain to be alive. Any advice?

Click to expand...

The best spot for a flounder is between the eyes but not there in the middle, a bit toward the body. Picture a triangle with the eyes and the sweet spot as vertices. Now if you only have a knife, use it like you said (perpendicular to the spine) because the fish will react swimming forward. The motion should be stabing and pinning at the same time. Put some pressure while you open the bag or stringer with the other hand.

It sounds like you are not out hunting just taking advantage of what may come along, so I imagine you may not have all the hunting toys. You can make a pocket stringer with a short lenght of wire (mono, or similar) and a used up spear tip. Either put a crimp thingy to form a small eye (loop) or just a cork in one end. And the spear tip to the other end. This uses almost zero storage space. They sale ready made ones ofcourse.
Also better than a knife is a flat screwdriver, with it you don't over cut the fish or yourself when handling the fish, and it can be stored parallel to your knife with either the same straps of the sheath or some velcro.
When you hit the flounder on the proper spot, you'll see the tail curling up for a few seconds.
As mentioned above, flounder teeth are sharp, but the mouth is actually very small so you almost have to put a finger inside to get bit. As a last resource I actually shoved one in a dry suit pocket once.
Flounders happen to be good for not atracting sharks also, unlike groupers and other delicacies they don't bleed much at all and they don't seem to shake as much either.

After you're done catching what you want or if you encounter undersize ones. Very softly stick the tip of the screwdriver/pole/spear/whatever in the sand about 1 inch away from the side of the flounder diagonally. Slowly work that tip to tickle the underside of the animal. If you are carefull you can caress him from the tail to the neck, they swimm away if you try to touch around the mouth.

FWIW, we have been molested by bull sharks for flounder last fall. On more than one occassion.

Wayward Son:

FWIW, we have been molested by bull sharks for flounder last fall. On more than one occassion.

Click to expand...

Around here in the Panama City area? well, I guess I've been lucky. So far we've only had to give up groupers and snappers. Have been looked at and circled around for combinations of flounder plus something else, but not when we carry flounder only.

I'm a lousy shot so I go for flounder, lobster and crabs, my husband takes care of the rest. Then depending on the situation dinner goes to either his stringer or mine and we tend to come up together.

DrSteve:

Hi Guys,

I'm a wimp. I tried spear fishing last year and loved the hunt. But when the tau tog didn't die after I speared it and rammed my knife through its head I felt really guilty, in fact it swam off my knife and crawled away to die, but I found it again and got it into my keep bag which the poor thing valiantly tried to escape from (despite the fact that it's inards were also trying to escape from inside the fish). I admit it, I'd be a vegetarian if I had to kill for meat.

But having said that on a recent dive I was very close to a huge flounder (at least 2 feet in length) and I was sooo tempted to stick my knife in it. Afterall I do like to eat fish. BUT, here's the question...I want to kill the fish quickly, no swimming off my knife like the last one did. I know that for flat fish you need to have the knife perpendicular to the fishes spine otherwise they can swim away and cut themselves in half. I also realise that fish are pretty much like chickens in terms of not needing much of a brain to be alive. Any advice?

Click to expand...

There's a trick to that. Apparently (and I admit to not being very knowledgeable about this) there is a sweet spot just at the back of the gills that either stuns or kills the fish. Spear-fishermen (or fisherpeople....whatever) use this "trick" to paralyze rather large fish so I would imagine it works on smaller fish too..... Your question is a good one to post on a spear fishing board.

R..

Yep, out on the bridge spans. I even have pics of a stringer of them without tails. The diver abandonded the fish & pole spear on a span & got back in the boat. Someone else went back down to recover them. Apparently the shark lost track of the fish after they were dropped, as he didn't eat any more of them.

We also had a group come down from Pelham for 2 days. They lost almost every fish they took that weekend, including quite a few flounder.

Bil has been molested while floundering when using the line on the end of the spear setup as a stringer.

One thing that seems to help is putting the fish inside a bag rather than on a stringer. It *seems* that if you can get the fish out of sight the sharks don't get worked up over them. This is a working hypothesis, YMMV. So far it's worked good enough that I plan to buy a bigger bag, the one I have is too small to hold a legal AJ or decent sized gag.

A great way to subdue fish, even real big ones, is to grab the gills & squeeze hard. This shuts them down fast, it's just like cutting off our airway.

With flounder I don't bother, I just bag or string them. But a decent sized gag may need it, and any legal sized AJ will beat the snot out of you, given the chance. And even if you stone one, they often don't stay that way. They have a habit of coming back to life. This can get exciting.