Fresh Water Flounder

I was reading a post about a group going to Santee and doing real good on the catching of some real nice crappie and it brought to mind something that took place back in the 70's.
In the town I live in for a lot of years there was a gentleman that retired from working in the cotton mill and had a little shop out back of his house where he repaired reels and would fix a rod if it was salvageable. In the evenings some of us guys would gather in the shop and shoot the bull.
Well, he loved to fish, and, he especially loved to go to Santee to fish for Crappie. After he returned from one of his trips to Santee some of us were gathered in his shop one evening and he was telling us all about the successful trip he and his dog had. It was a usual tale until he got to the part where he was on the pier cleaning his catch. While there he said a couple of men with their wives walked out on the pier where he was and he "knowed right away they wasn't from around here".
One of the men asked him, "What kind of fish are those? He said I looked up and they were all gathered around me. So I said, "why, these is Fresh Water Flounder". The feller looked at me and said, "Wow, I've never seen or heard of one of those before. Are they good to eat"? My friend said I looked up and said they're even better than the salt water kind. He just cackled and said, "They wasn't from around here"!
So boys when you go to Santee make sure you load up on some Fresh Water Flounder !!!

I was fishing where a couple of feeder creeks opened up to the Albemarle Sound back in the early 70's before salt water got driven in so bad by hurricanes. I caught a crappie on the first cast to a willow bush, a flounder on the next cast, and a bass a few casts later all within 3-4 feet of each other. Of course it was brackish water, but I wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't happened to me.

I heard a buddy of mine tell another guy fishing at Jordan Lake that a Bowfin the guy had caught was a Short Nosed Pike and the guy put the fish in his bucket to eat. That same buddy had his girlfriend convinced that cows had different length legs front & back so they could stand on a hillside to eat. One has to be real careful believing what comes out of his mouth.

Jim

Saw a picture of one caught on a spinnerbait by my ex father in law at Sutton. You never know.

Sutton is full of flounders. Caught several in there over the years.