Introduction
Flounder fishing (yellowbelly flounder) on foot with soft plastics is one of the most underrated, quietly addictive forms of lure fishing going around in New Zealand. There’s no boat, no sounder, no heavy tackle — just you, a pair of waders, a light rod, and the flat stretching out in front of you. Done right, it’s chess played on water. Done wrong, you’ll spend the whole session blowing up fish you never even clapped eyes on.
This guide is for anyone keen to get serious about chasing flounder on micro softbaits in the shallows — whether you’re picking up a rod for the first time or you’ve already put a few fish on the bank and want to understand what’s really going on beneath the surface, so you can plan your next floundering mission with a bit more strategy. The notes here are hard-earned and gathered from the warmer months right through to the depths of mid-winter.
Understanding Flounder Behaviour
Before you can catch them with any consistency, you need to understand what a flounder is actually doing at any given moment. Unlike most fish, they’re not out actively cruising the water column — most of the time they’re ambush stalkers, content to lie on the bottom for hours on end, often buried just beneath a skin of soft mud. Learning to read their body language is everything in this game.
• Buried in the mud: the fish is in ambush or hiding mode, sitting tight and waiting for something tasty to wander past right in front of it. This is prime time to work a lure right next to its mouth.
• Lying flat, not buried: the fish is resting or ready to shift position. It’s relaxed, but not actively feeding. A well-presented bait can still draw a strike here, but it has to look completely natural.
• Flat on the bottom with its head slightly raised: this is a warning sign. The fish is on alert, either about to shift or it’s already clocked something it doesn’t like — possibly you. Freeze and hold off on the cast.
• Swimming with frequent direction changes: the fish is actively hunting. Flounder will patrol along looking for food, rising a little in the water column and changing direction often. If you spot one zig-zagging like this and your lure happens to cross its path, you’re in business — it will often drop back down and start stalking your lure, and the strike can come quickly, sometimes after just one or two stalks.
The key takeaway: a flounder’s body language tells you everything about whether a cast is worth making, and whether you need to slow right down or back off altogether. That said, each behaviour can call for a slightly different read depending on the day and the context. The most reliable interpretation will always come from watching how the flounder in your own spots react to your lure across these different behaviour patterns — what’s described above is simply my own observation from my spots, offered here as a reference point.
How to Find Them
For any style of fishing, scouting your spot beforehand — whether that’s walking it at low tide or doing your homework online with tools like Google Earth, Windy, or local fishing forums — will lift your success rate considerably. For floundering it matters even more, because the whole game is built on sight. A scout at low tide or some time spent studying satellite imagery will help you plan your approach route, which we’ll cover in more detail shortly. Take other people’s reports with a grain of salt: every flat behaves differently, so someone else’s red-hot session at their spot might tell you very little about yours. Your own fishing diary, kept honestly over time, will always be your best mate here.
Once you wade into the shallows, keep an eye out for changes in bottom texture and colour — places where hard-packed mud gives way to something soft, porous, and pocked with small holes and burrows. Those holes belong to crabs, and crabs are mostly what flounder are hunting. Pay close attention to how the mud feels underfoot, too. The moment it turns soft and spongy beneath your boots, slow right down — there’s a good chance you’ve just walked onto a flounder’s doorstep. I’ve also spooked plenty of flounder in rocky areas, where mud is only patchily distributed within small rocky basins, so the rule of thumb is to watch for any change in bottom texture underfoot — the fish could be sitting anywhere along that change. The more fish you spook, the more visual experience you bank, and the more careful you’ll become with your next foot placement. Over time you’ll build up a mental map of how flounder distribute themselves at a given spot, and you can carry that map across to similar spots elsewhere.
Concave bays on the sides of channels and rivers are particularly productive on the outgoing tide. Flounder tuck into these curved pockets and let prey wash past as the water drops away, though the bite tends to drop off once the water gets down to around ankle depth.
Sun angle matters more than most people realise here too. Ideally, you want the sun over your shoulder or off to the side, so the bottom lights up clearly in front of you. If you’re forced to walk into the sun, crouch low and keep your silhouette small. If the sun’s behind you instead, work hard to keep your shadow off any water where a flounder might be lying — they often sit facing up toward the surface light to spot prey overhead, which means they can pick up your shadow well before you pick up them.
Wade against the current rather than with it. That way, any cloudy water you stir up behind you stays behind you, and the water ahead stays clear. It also means you’re approaching most flounder from behind rather than head-on, since fish will typically point into the current if there’s any flow to speak of. Where current isn’t the main driver of feeding activity at your spot, structure becomes the deciding factor for where flounder set up, with sun angle and shadow playing a secondary role. Underwater rock patches and man-made structure — piers, slipways, jetties, even the wall at the bottom of someone’s backyard — are all well worth a look if these areas are permitted, and tend to be quietly productive water.
Lastly, I’d recommend fishing solo — but only when it’s safe to do so and you know the spot well. Two people in the water double the noise, the shadows, and the footprint, even if your mate moves as carefully as you do; in practice it almost never works out that way. The best sessions happen with just one person, moving slowly and deliberately. And if you arrive to find dogs swimming, birds wading, or people splashing about at your spot, it’s usually best to cut your losses and try somewhere else. Flounder are extremely wary during daylight hours, and it doesn’t take much to put them off entirely.
Approach Strategy
This is where most people go wrong: they wade straight in and start fishing without giving a thought to their approach, and end up spooking fish they haven’t even reached yet.
Before you get your boots wet, think through:
• Where’s the sun, and where will your shadow fall?
• Which way is the current running, and what’s the tide doing — pushing fish toward shore, or pulling them off the flat?
• Which way are the fish likely to be facing, and where might they be spread out?
• What’s the slope like — a flat edge, or a shallow-to-deep transition?
Plan a route that keeps the disturbed water drifting away behind you, keeps your shadow off the productive ground, and lets you approach from behind or to the side of where the fish are likely sitting.
Ironically, the stretch you’ve already waded through is often where your guard drops first. Fish that moved off earlier may well have slipped quietly back in, so on your way back to shore, treat those shallows as new water all over again.
It’s perfectly fine to feel a bit deflated when you find a solid patch of flounder, present your lure right under their noses, and get nothing for it — they show some feeding interest and trail your lure for a while, but never quite arch up and commit. Take that as your cue to grab a few good photos instead, and keep your pulse in check rather than crowding in too close. Wait it out; in my experience it rarely takes longer than twenty minutes for a fish to drop back into an active feeding or ambush mode. What you want to avoid is pressing in too close, casting at the same fish over and over, or chopping and changing lures and jigheads trying to crack the code — more often than not, that just spooks them further and makes them edgier, and you’ll see it: they’ll shuffle toward open water ready to bolt, raise their head slightly, or ease off into deeper water. The general rule of thumb is this: once you’ve found a fish (and chances are it’s found you too), give it a cast. If it’s not interested, stop casting at that same fish straight away — provided your lure size, presentation, and technique were all on the money.
(This fish approached almost perfectly — right in front of my feet — but had already sensed me and clamped its mouth shut, no matter how many times I presented. With hindsight, I should have circled around to its tail, or spotted it from a distance and repositioned before moving in. Always approach from the tail side if you can.)
Tides, Weather, and Timing
Getting the timing right is half the battle. Understanding your specific spot is critical, because every location behaves differently — and I can’t stress that enough. I’m often asked for an opinion on a spot I haven’t fished myself, and any advice I give on those is pretty much useless until I’ve actually put the time in there.
Weather
Overcast, calm days are the pick of the bunch: low wind, no glare, no chop, and the fish stand out far more easily against the bottom. If you’re stuck fishing a breezy day, look for a sheltered bay or back-channel — there’s almost always a calm pocket tucked away somewhere out of the wind. And if you’re leaning more on blind casting than sight fishing, a bit of weather can actually work in your favour. A touch of wind, some chop, and slightly murky water often tips flounder into a swimming-and-searching mood, rather than the flatter, more ambush-minded behaviour you see on a dead calm day during the warmer months. After heavy rain, give it a couple of days before heading out — freshwater runoff drops the salinity and muddies everything up, so it pays to wait for conditions to settle and the clarity to return. In short, read the weather a couple of days out from your trip to get a feel for whether the flounder are likely to be having a good feed, and whether the water’s going to be fishable.
Tides
As a general rule, the window worth chasing is anytime the tide is coming in and starting to cover the feeding flats. Do your scouting first so you know which stage of the incoming tide is safe to wade, and always plan your exit timing as carefully as your entry — getting cut off by the tide is no joke. As the tide pushes water across the mud flats, flounder follow it in close to shore to feed. The higher the tide climbs, the closer to the bank they’ll come, which usually means more fish within easy casting range in shallower water.
Some spots, in certain weather, actually fish better on the outgoing tide because the water runs clearer. I’ve watched flounder chase bait balls holding in ankle-deep water on the outgoing tide in summer, and I’ve also found them sitting tight-lipped at what should have been the perfect stage. They’re not switched on to feed through every minute of the incoming, and they don’t shut up shop completely through every minute of the outgoing either. The honest truth is we’ll never fully crack this fish’s code — not unless we become one ourselves. Spending too long analysing any single tide factor will never be enough on its own; the pieces only come together once you’ve put them all in front of you, and that’s often only clear after the session’s done — mostly because any good fisherman is excellent at stitching together a complete story out of half-remembered details, so long as it sounds logical afterwards. So when people ask me what the best tide is, my honest answer is always the same: as long as there’s water on your spot, mate, go and have a look. You’ll learn something new every single time.
One other thing I’ve noticed time and again: on a dropping tide and water levels are low, a spooked fish that flees in the same direction as the current is gone for the session. On a rising tide, though, a spooked fish will often circle back within five minutes or so, though it’s always worth giving it longer if you’ve got the water depth to spare. You’ll frequently find the same fish again on your way back through, either on the same spot or somewhere nearby — just keep in mind the depth (and therefore the clarity) will have changed as the tide’s come in, and that your own energy and sharpness might have dropped a notch too, which means you can spook them just as easily on the way out. Still, at least you’ll have laid eyes on them again, and that’s a win in itself.
(This one was buried under a pile of fallen leaves in shallow water barely above my ankles. The only giveaway was a glint from its eye caught through my polarised sunglasses. Timing here comes down to weather, tide, and structure — but when all those factors align at once, go out and chase them.)
Rigging Up
Flounder have relatively small mouths set parallel to the ground, which means they mostly suck their food up from below — a bit like watching a carp feed, although a New Zealand flounder’s strike can be far more aggressive and sharp than that comparison suggests. Your rig needs to work with that, not against it.
• Jighead weight: 1 to 3 grams. Go too heavy and your lure will sink into the soft mud, get stuck, or settle into a hole the fish simply can’t reach. A pair of scissors works well for trimming lead down to the exact weight you need. One more note worth making here: your jighead weight is actually a good starting point for working out what else you’ll need — the rod, reel, line, and leader should all be matched to suit it, which we’ll cover properly under Gear Notes below.
• Jighead colour and shape: if you really want to get finicky about reducing a flounder’s alertness, gold jigheads can be nearly invisible underwater and are worth a try. Personally, I tend to stick with a plain lead-coloured jighead, or switch to bright green or pink when the water’s a bit off-colour, simply so I can track where my lure is — which matters when you’re trying to spot a flounder shadowing your lure from a distance, since you’ll often need to pause and give it a twitch right on the spot once it’s being stalked. As for shape, an oval jighead, with the hook shank standing vertically along its long axis, sits the lure flatter and steadier on the bottom, though it does throw up a bigger splash on the surface. A round jighead causes less disturbance and sinks fast, but I’ve had a few drop straight into a crab hole on the way down. There are plenty of jighead styles on the market, each with their own trade-offs, but the best one is usually whatever you’ve actually got on hand. Get the scissors out, trim the lead to the weight and shape you reckon will work, and see what comes of it — you might end up designing your own, or going weightless with a small ball sinker so the fish can suck the lure in without any resistance at all. The fun part is that there are countless combinations worth trying, and most of them will get you there in the end.
• Hook shape: long-shank hooks with a narrow gap and an offset point will lift your hook-up rate noticeably. If you can’t get hold of an offset jighead, bending the hook point slightly to one side achieves much the same thing.
• Lure shape and size: size matters more than colour here. Dark shades — black, dark green, redwine and the like — show up well against the flat for both flounder and anglers alike. Small, flat, and crab-shaped is your best friend on the flats — a lure like that drags cleanly over soft mud without digging in or snagging in holes too often. The next best option is a small curly-tail or paddle-tail in a compact size, roughly the profile of a small-to-medium anchovy. If whitebait happen to be running through your spot, you can try a sabiki-style rig — a home-tied two-to-four-hook version, since more hooks just means more tangles and snags — crawled slowly along the bottom, or use a thin, soft ajing-style lure, which works just as well when the fish are in the mood and will strike at whatever drifts past their mouth. Either way, it always pays to match the hatch and keep their wariness to a minimum.
• Hard-bodied alternative: I’ve also heard of anglers using a hard-bodied sinking crab lure with two floating treble hooks standing in for the claws, so the trebles can hook a flounder almost regardless of intent — whether it’s a genuine feeding strike or just a curious nudge as the fish swims past. It works, but for me there’s not quite the same satisfaction in it as a clean, single-hook fish taken fair in the mouth — and if your intent is catch and release, it tends to do more harm to both you and the fish.
(There's no shortage of lures that will work for flounder, but the best one is always whatever you have on hand at the spot. This DIY four-legged softbait — trimmed down from a chunky bass lure — performs well in most situations. I'll sometimes add a small strip of salted pilchard skin held on with bait elastic to trigger feeding when fish are only stalking. Scent additives can help too, but some smell artificial to me and tend to stay on lures long after a session. That said, nothing will magically switch on a flounder that's decided to shut its mouth — sometimes it's better to put the rod down, take photos, and make notes.)
Gear Notes
You don’t need flashy gear to get started — most trout rods, squid rods, or ajing rods will do the job just fine. Here are the main things worth considering:
• Rod: medium to fast action, and sensitivity matters far more than length. Steer clear of very long rods — the longer the rod, the more trouble you’ll have, and the more spooked fish you’ll see. Somewhere between 2 and 2.3 metres is a suitable range, with your particular spot being the deciding factor. For wading, I personally want a rod as short as possible while still long enough to swing a lure to a nearby flounder’s mouth without having to open the bail arm — remember, opening and closing the bail creates noise and movement you don’t need. That assumes you’ve got the skill to approach a fish very closely in daylight; if not, a rod around 2.3 metres will give you more distance between yourself and your prey, so you’re not having to creep in quite so close for a rod-length flip. Around the Tamaki rivers, my go-to is a 1.98-metre travel rod — the riverbanks there are loaded with natural and artificial structure such as walls, piers, slipways, rocks, and mangroves, and that shorter length lets me work in close around all of it, even ducking under a slipway or passing close by low-hanging trees near the water. A shorter rod also tangles less on the tip, especially when you’re running fine line through fewer guides, and it’s usually cheaper too, since there’s simply less rod to build. And I have to say most rods on the shelf nowadays are longer than you actually need so don’t be talked into more than your spot demands.
• Reel: spin or baitcaster, both work. If your spots demand frequent flip casting, or you’re mostly sight fishing, I’d lean toward a spinning reel — it’s simpler and more efficient across a range of weather and terrain. If you’re mainly blind casting, though, a baitcaster lets you retrieve the lure with a more subtle feel for the bottom and the tap, since your lure, line, rod guides, spool, thumb, and hand are all more directly in line with the lure than they are on a spinning reel — meaning less energy is lost between the lure and your senses — and it also allows a faster hook set. For spots demanding constant flip casting, though, a spinning reel is the better, even though a baitcaster can still get the job done, with the obvious limitation that under tight structure you may not have room to flip the rod at all without clipping the branches above you — though you can still open the bail and lob the lure out by hand with zero resistance off the spool. There’s no clear right or wrong here; plenty of anglers have mastered either system for any given situation, but for most of us, a spinning reel is about as adaptable as you’ll find for land-based fishing of any kind. Worth noting that a baitcasting setup is its own world entirely — not just the reel, but the matched rod, drag and braking system all come into play together. You control the spool with your thumb on a release button and can set the hook almost instantly, which makes the whole system more agile than a spinning reel. That said, flounder aren’t bass — they won’t smash a lure mid-air — so the lightning-fast hook set isn’t strictly necessary in this game, though I still rate the simplicity and sensitivity of a baitcaster highly enough that I plan to keep testing different casting systems for flounder before I say much more on the matter. I’ll leave it there for now rather than go on forever about it.
• Line: light braid for sensitivity, paired with a fluorocarbon leader, is my normal setup. It lets you feel the bite the instant it happens and cuts down on wind drag in the air. Pink has taken over every spool I own lately — it’s highly visible across a wide range of weather and water conditions.
• Sunglasses: a brown or copper tint is the pick for shallow mud flats. Always run a strap or cord on them, so they stay with you rather than ending up in the mud.
• Waders: a pair of hip waders, the kind with an adjustable waist belt, is generally enough, and gives your upper body more freedom to climb, bend, or scramble over different terrain. They also serve as a built-in reminder to stick to the shallows — chest waders tend to give people the confidence to push into deeper water than is genuinely safe for some of us.
• Your outfit: anything that keeps you warm and lightweight, ideally in something a bit camouflaged or muted in colour.
• A belt: I wear one with a rod holder built into the side, which is handy whenever I need both hands free for something else.
• A waterproof backpack: one with separate dry and wet compartments is ideal — a dry pocket for your phone, and a wet one for any flounder you’re keeping for dinner. Some of the better ones can even double as a buoyancy aid once fully zipped.
• Everything else: a floating knife, a landing net, a towel — comes down to personal preference. I’d recommend taking as little gear as possible, since skill counts for far more than equipment out here. What you carry ultimately depends on whatever your spot demands and what you want out of the trip; that part’s entirely your call.
(I used to wade barefoot in summer, thinking it reduced disturbance in the water. I was still fishing after one bad fall and it took nearly six weeks to fully recover — and during that time, who knows how many flounder I missed. It could have been far worse; I could have lost a foot. Since then I always wear protective leggings or a hip wader. Please prioritise your safety.) 
Working the Lure
Blind Casting
Blind casting works best with a clear plan in mind. Build up a mental map of the flat — where the underwater structure sits, where the slopes and rocks are, how the current line runs — and cast to wherever you think a fish is most likely holding, usually somewhere upstream of your position. As soon as the lure hits the surface, gently tighten the line until you feel it touch down on the bottom; sometimes a bit of upstream mending helps take the current’s pull out of your line so you can feel what’s actually happening below. From there, work it slow and steady: drag the lure along the bottom, pause it regularly, and treat that pause as prime time — the strike, or ‘tap’, most often comes during the stop, not the drag. Think drag-pause, drag-pause, mimicking a crab freezing the instant it senses danger, and keep the lure hugging the bottom throughout. Once you feel that tap, give it a couple of seconds before setting the hook. Within that window, if you tighten the line just a touch more, you can often feel the drag of the fish’s mouth on the lure, and if your rod’s sensitive enough — and the fish is properly committed — you might even feel a chewing vibration. When you do set the hook, angle the strike up and to the side rather than straight up; that tends to land it in the upper jaw, and if you’re facing the flounder head-on, its right-hand side carries more lip and jaw area, which lifts your hook-up rate. Worth remembering too: blind casting doesn’t demand your full attention on the water you’re casting into, so you can keep half an eye on the rest of the flat while you work — combining methods like this only improves your odds.
Rod sensitivity is important for blind casting, since it’s what transmits those subtle taps up to your hand. A medium-fast or fast-action rod also helps you cast small, light lures with minimal effort, whether you’re throwing overhead or flipping, and it lets you react to a tap more accurate.
Visual Casting
Once you’ve spotted a fish, it’s all about placement and patience. Your cast direction depends entirely on how that fish is sitting. If you come across a flounder facing you head-on rather than tail-on, freeze immediately — chances are it’s already seen you too, and its cold-blooded body is probably gearing up for a quick getaway. If it hasn’t raised its head or shifted position, it likely reckons it’s hidden well enough and has, for the moment, got the upper hand. From there, flip your lure to one side at a generous distance, so the splash of it landing doesn’t disturb the fish any further. Take real care, too, with how you close the reel’s bail arm — some reels click shut loud and crisp enough to put a fish off entirely. It’s time to go full hunter, quiet as a shag working the flats.
Once the lure has sunk to the bottom, work it slowly toward the fish’s head using that same drag-pause pattern. Even while the lure’s still some distance off, walk it like a real crab — the fish may well be watching, or feeling the current and any vibrations you create — so don’t drop the act until you’ve seen a solid strike. As the lure closes in on its mouth, watch closely for the response: does it crawl forward to meet the lure? Sit there ignoring it completely? Shift position, ready to bolt? Or arch its back, coiled and ready to strike? Learning how individual fish react builds a mental library you’ll draw on every session from here on.
As with blind casting, sight fishing can go quiet at times — the fish simply aren’t within range yet, and wading any deeper isn’t safe. That’s your cue to switch back to blind casting until you spot a fish, or spook one, giving you a fresh signal to swap back to sight fishing. Sometimes, if you’re just resting and standing still in the water on a slightly higher patch of ground, you’ll find a careless flounder swimming straight toward you, mistaking you for a piece of structure. It’s one of the highest compliments your prey can pay you — proof you’ve well and truly outsmarted it — and it makes for one of the most rewarding moments out on the flat.
The Flip Cast
One of the most underrated techniques going, especially in tight spots. A short, controlled flip keeps your rod movement to a minimum and lets you control exactly how and where the lure touches down. A clean flip means less disturbance, and fewer spooked flounder.
Setting the Hook
Because a flounder’s mouth opens parallel to the ground, a straight, vertical strike will often cut clean through the lip crease without setting. Angle your strike slightly to the side instead, and once the hook’s set, guide the fish steadily toward your net rather than the bank — I’d recommend staying put and bringing the net to the fish, since wading toward the bank just stirs up more mud and clouds the water, unless you already know the cleanest route through. You can also rotate the hook up to 90 degrees on the jighead to lift your hook-up rate further.
(Watch it jump and flap, its head thrashing as it dashes through the water — that line-cutting sound is one of the most exciting finesse fights you'll find in New Zealand. Make sure your rod has enough flex to absorb those sudden bursts, and dial back your drag or be ready on the bail arm to ease the pressure before the hook pulls)
When Things Go Wrong
You’ve spooked it. Here’s how to play it from here.
If the fish bolts, stop moving entirely — feet, body, everything. Only your eyes should move. So long as you haven’t panicked and dropped a cast right on top of it, there’s a good chance it’ll slow down, settle, and gradually drift back. Give it a few minutes.
On a rising tide, the fish often returns. On the ebb, accept that one’s done and move on to the next.
Pay attention to how it fled, too. If it arched up and eased away before settling again, it was unsure rather than terrified, and possibly still recoverable. If it erupted in a burst and left a trail of stirred-up mud behind it, that fish is done with you for the day — doubly so if the tide’s already dropping.
A spooked fish that does return will be warier for the rest of that session, so you’ll need to adapt with a more delicate approach: a smaller-profile lure, a longer pause, and a touch more patience.
(In my first few sessions I was an expert at spooking them.)
Final Thoughts
If you’ve made it this far, you’ll have gathered that floundering on softbaits in New Zealand is far more a game of observation, approach, and patience than brute effort — punctuated by sharp, decisive moments when it all comes together. It rewards anglers who move slowly, think carefully, and notice the small things: the soft patch underfoot, the faint colour change on the bottom, the dark shape that wasn’t there on your last scan.
Start with sight fishing. Learn to find the fish first, watch how they react to your lure, and build up a mental picture of what a flounder looks like when it’s about to feed, when it’s about to bolt, and everywhere in between. That visual knowledge is gold once you’re working blind later in the day.
One last thing: respect the nature. Stay safe — be mindful of tides, soft mud, and drop-offs at the edge of channels. Don’t leave rubbish behind, and keep your footprint as light as the fish you’re chasing.
The fish will reward you for the effort, and there’s a charm to it not far off stalking a trout on light tackle — arguably with an extra layer of challenge thrown in.
Good luck out there — tight lines and soft mud.
Dedicated to every flounder hunter who’s ever frozen mid-stride, heart hammering, watching a dark shape settle back into the mud.
© 2026 Don Fish. All rights reserved.
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