Alderman and other guides have learned that to enjoy consistent success, you must develop a strategy that integrates forage, tides, current, structure and depth into a workable pattern.

Peter Brown is another guide I've fished with for flounder out of the Charleston area.

"Flounder are certainly a popular fish species and during the warmer months of the year, we catch a lot of fish," Brown said. "They're good fighting fish and through the years I've found some patterns which produce flounder on a consistent basis. In fact, sometimes when fishing is tough for other species such as redfish, I can usually put my clients on a bunch of flounder and they'll have a ball catching them."

According to Alderman and Brown, flounder begin to show up in anglers' creels in April and May, but it's usually late June to July when the fishing gets really good, Brown said.

"We generally catch a lot of flounder during this time of the year, but the good news is that we typically catch quite a few really good-sized fish as well. We'll typically catch quite a few in the 4-pound class, which is a good-sized flounder. We'll catch them larger than that occasionally as well," Brown said.

There are several different patterns these guides employ, depending on the weather, water and tide conditions. One favored technique that can be productive around the high tides is to fish the mouths of creeks just inside an inlet or the mouth of an inlet adjacent to the ocean. Focus on areas with a sandy bottom. Brown showed me the day we fished that he specifically likes a creek that is rather shallow at the mouth, but once you get past the mouth, the water deepens. There are a number of places like this and they can be real flounder honeyholes, he noted.

Another factor that makes this situation even better is to find some oyster beds close to the marsh grass. The flounder like to lie between the oyster beds and the marsh grass, often right next to the grass when the tide is high enough. If there's a sandy slope between the oysters and the grass, that's where you can usually expect to find the fish. At the least, this gives you an easily identifiable target to begin your search. The ideal time to fish this situation seems to be when the tide is over the top of the shells but just at the edge of the grass. As the tide goes up or down from this spot, you'll have to adjust your presentation. But that tends to be a prime area targeted by the flounder.

Most anglers prefer to anchor the boat when fishing this particular pattern. You need to cover a lot of water, but by allowing the current or wind to drift the bait along the potential hotspot you can keep the rig in a high-probability strike zone.

Both Alderman and Brown said they will fish a rig with a specialized float, called an equalizer float. The water is usually not very deep and the flounder will move up to the more shallow areas as the tide comes in. Rig the float to be as deep as the depth of water you are fishing. They use a Kahle hook usually in the 1 to 2/0 size range, and for bait, will select big mud minnows, small to medium finger mullets, small menhaden or shrimp.

According to Alderman, any of these can be excellent flounder baits. "The flounder will readily feed on any of them, so I don't worry about which of these live baits I'm using: I'll usually use the one that's easiest to catch," he said.