INDIAN RIVER INLET
As you heading northeast from Indian River Inlet, there aren’t as many lumps and ridges as to the south, though Fenwick Shoal is within reach.

However, numerous wrecks are located in 30- to 60-foot depths. And at the Old Grounds, some lumps and ridges extend from the ocean floor in 90-foot depths.

I’ve made the 10-mile run north to the shoals located in that stretch from Rehoboth Beach north to Cape Henlopen. The Hen and Chicken shoals extend from the Cape offshore in a southeasterly direction.

The shoal proper ranges from depths as shallow as 18 feet close to shore, down to 30 feet at its outer end. Surrounding depths plummet to 60 feet or more.

Along its outer range, the several vintage wrecks and accompanying mussel beds along the bottom are favorite haunts for the bigger summer flatfish.

INDIAN RIVER & REHOBOTH BAYS
“Shallow” is the best way to describe Delaware’s Indian River and Rehoboth bays. Many years ago, it was common practice for local residents to go forth at night in rowboats equipped with bow-mounted lanterns. They used a gig affixed to a long handle to spear flounder -- an illegal practice today -- in the 2- to 3-foot depths that prevail in these bays.

These bays’ shallow flats, along with the deeper channels, often provide good fishing, especially for those anglers willing to get on the water early, before boat traffic disturbs the waterway. Most of the flounder encountered in these waters are a year or older and usually range in size from 12 to 15 inches.

That makes it difficult to catch a keeper, although there are nominal numbers of keeper-size flounder in the bay populations as well.

ASSAWOMAN, ISLE OF WIGHT & CHINCOTEAGUE BAYS
“Shallow, very shallow” best describes all of these bays. “Abundant” also properly describes the forage found in these waterways, which lie inside the barrier islands separating the bays from the ocean. Myriad forage species include menhaden, mullet, spearing, shad and alewife, along with blue crabs, grass shrimp and various sea worms.

Summer flounder love all of these forage species. In recent years, Maryland anglers have had the opportunity to retain smaller flounder than anywhere else along the Atlantic coast. While a couple of inches may not seem to make a difference, by midsummer those 1 1/2-year-old flatfish regularly grow enough to make them long enough to keep.

While some may scoff at Maryland’s small size and two-fish limit, most everyone I know throughout the Northeast would delight in having such liberal regulations.

MILES OF GORGEOUS SURF
A search for summer flounder in the waters of Delaware and Maryland must necessarily include the miles after miles of gorgeous Atlantic Ocean surf from Cape Henlopen to Assateague Island. The surf is beautiful, with a wide variety of configurations, including deep-water dropoffs close to inlets. There are miles of gently sloping beaches. Some beaches have sandbars paralleling the shoreline, with deep cuts or holes between the bars and shallow troughs inside the sandbars. Every inch of this dazzling surf holds forage, and the summer flounder regularly feed on this abundance of food, often within a few rod lengths of the sand.

Surfcasters generally fish these stretches of beach using conventional bottom rigs and natural bait to target striped bass, weakfish, bluefish, croakers, kingfish and spots. As a result, they catch fewer summer flounder than if they targeted this flatfish specifically. I can vividly recall many instances when I scored with lures or a combination of bottom bait and teaser while probing these beaches specifically for flounder.

Many surfcasters, I suspect, fail to realize they could score with flounder if they used a walk-and-cast approach to probe a long stretch of beach, as opposed to sticking to one spot with their baits just sitting on the bottom.