Thanks for visiting StabbyFish.com. We love flounder gigging! We are thrilled to launch this website and provide some cool items for the flounder gigging community. Let's face it - it's not easy to find the good stuff when it comes to flounder gigging equipment and lights. There's just not that much swag out there for us midnight fish hunters. We're hoping to change that and become a premiere supplier of flounder gigging tackle and accessories. We hope you enjoy the site.
I got into flounder gigging about 7 years ago. Truth be told - I'm a Yankee (don't hold it against me, we can change!) and I had never heard of this bizarre sport before moving to Florida. But a couple of local Floridian friends - and I mean real Florida folks who have lived in the Sunshine State their entire lives - started telling fish stories about flounder gigging over apple pie moonshine. At first I thought they were teasing me. What person in their right mind would wade into shark-infested water at feeding time and splash around? I was sure this was the southerner's version of a Snipe Hunt.
But they convinced me to go. We set a date for the next evening. We went to Wal-Mart and bought a camping lantern, fuel, extra filaments. We couldn't find proper gigs so I grabbed a hot dog fork from the camping section. We duct taped it to a broom handle. My friend showed me how to cover the back half of glass on the camping lantern with aluminum foil so I didn't get glare back in my eyes - old trick of the trade I'm sure many of y'all are familiar with (see, I can learn some southernese. Bless my heart.)
Night came and it was flounder gigging time. Donned my bathing suit & old sneakers, covered myself in bug spray, and off to the river. But first, I needed to do Flounder Gigging School. You start with a solemn promise that you will not stab each other in the foot. I laughed, and they said it's not funny - be careful. My friends warned me not to touch the glass of the lantern (it would burn me) or let the lantern glass get splashed (it might shatter.) They explained I should take small shuffling steps so you don't stomp on a stingray/skate (no Steve Irwin incidents.) They drew a football shape in the sand, added eyes, and showed where I should stab (behind the eyes in the gill plate) and that I should stab hard and keep pressure down on the fish so it wouldn't scoot off - they would come over and show me how to get the flounder off the gig and on to the stringer. They reminded me again not to stab anybody (I think there might have been an incident...) And then we lit out lanterns and waded into the warm Nassau river.
The rest, as they say, is history. The details perhaps a story for another time. But I was immediately hooked on - or should I say speared by - flounder gigging. It was the most primal, bizarre, interesting, and beautiful thing I've ever done. I began to obsess about how to make it better. And that was the start of my wonderful journey...
Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and welcome again to StabbyFish.com. Please take a look at our shop and enjoy your visit here. Most importantly - cheers to you, fellow flounder gigging enthusiast. May your wind stay calm and your water clear.
