September is the month of change; summer starts to wind down and fall starts to show itself. I personally really like to fish in September, warm days, a little less humidity, much less boat traffic and best of all; great fishing! Also, during September, the mullet run starts to get going, this always helps the fishing! And last, but not least September 1st to the 14th 2026 is North Carolina Flounder Season!! Let’s talk Flounder… September is one of the better Flounder months for NC. Working with live bait or artificial lures are both good ways to catch flounder. Live bait is good for catching higher numbers of Flounder, but not always as many larger size flounder in my opinion. Mud minnows, and small finger mullet will be the best live baits for Flounder in September. I prefer to cast artificial lures when flounder fishing.
Rigging the live bait on carolina rigs with in #1 or 1/0 size L42 Eagle claw hooks is a good choice of rigs for Flounder. If you prefer to use artificial baits, I do see bigger size flounders more often on lures. Scented soft plastics work well in clear or stained water. Berkley Gulp Jerkshad in five and six inch in colors new penny, pearl white, fire tiger, and chart pepper neon are all good too. Darker colors like root beer gold and fire tiger (bright but not bright?) in stained/dirty waters seem to work better to get more bites. I like the Berkley Bonga Shrimp series as well for flounder fishing. I rig all these soft plastic lures on Berkley Fusion Jig head in 1/4oz, 3/8oz and 1/2oz weights in colors red, gray, or white. Bucktails tipped with Gulp work well for ocean flounder fishing, I prefer Berkley Fusion Bucktails in 1oz, 1.5oz or 2oz. The new Berkley Gulp Dragon tail is great to use as the trailer on a bucktail. Leaders Berkley Pro Spec fluorocarbon in 40 (inshore) or 50 pound (ocean). Lure presentation, slow steady jigging, not to hard on the jerk. Just enough to get the lure off the bottom, but making sure the lure gets back to the bottom every time between jigging.
Look for the bigger flounder around deeper docks with good current, with bait fish and lots of structure inshore. The inlets, offshore reef and ledges are all good places to find warm weather flounder. What do all these places have in common; deeper water, bait, current and structure. Do not forget to look for the clearest water possible and when fishing very stained/dirty water slow down your presentation of the bait and use darker color lures.
Capt. Jot is a full time inshore & near shore fishing guide. He has fished southeast NC for over twenty-eight years, around the waters of Wilmington and Wrightsville beach.
