Flounder are an extremely popular game fish.  Countless numbers of anglers in boats and on surf try there hand at flounder fishing each year.  The inlets, surf, and piers of North Carolina all hold good numbers of flounder.  Doormats are the perfect ambush feeders.  They are designed with the best camouflage to blend in with the ocean bottom.  Big flatties also adapted further by having both eyes on one side of its body.  This allows them to find a suitable spot and lay in wait on the bottom for a meal to swim by.  A suitable spot would be an area near current that would provide a steady supply of food.  This could be a slough off of the beach or an eddy behind a pier piling.  The flounder will nestle itself into the sand and out of the current while watching for a small finger mullet or menhaden to be swept by in the current.
Since flounder are typically lying in ambush this means that our bait should be moving.  Casting and retrieving will allow the angler to cover more water and also give any lure or bait a more lively appearance.  I will not be covering lures; we will only discuss live or cut bait fishing rigs for flounder.  Since a retrieve is needed the first component of our fishing rig will be a round sinker.  The three major types of sinkers used will be banks, egg, and disc sinkers.  All three varieties allow for a slow and steady retrieve as compared to the pyramid sinkers.

The most popular flounder rig in North Carolina tends to be based upon the time tested Carolina rig.  Simplicity is the key with this fishing rig.  All that is needed is a swivel, a sinker, leader material, and a hook.  For the any Carolina rig variation any of the sinkers above will do but the best choice would be the egg sinker.  Simply thread the main fishing line through the egg sinker and then tie it to the swivel.  Now tie a short length of leader material to swivel and tie a hook on the other end.  Now bait the hook with a live finger mullet, mud minnow, or cut squid.  There are many variations of the c-rig as seen in the pictures below.