Jon Lucy, a marine recreation specialist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, believes Bain is onto something in crediting the use of larger live bait with increased catches of big fish.

"There was considerable buzz among serious flounder anglers that larger baits were resulting in larger fish caught," he said. "There also seemed to be more talk about using live bait last year, something which appears on the increase for flounder."

While live bait was all the rage with trophy hunters around the CBBT last year, anglers farther up the bay tended to stick with time-tested strip baits of squid and cut fish. Still, the "bigger is better" mantra concerning bait for trophy flounder was in effect in perennial big-fish havens such as the Cut Channel and the Cell, each of which accounted for scores of citation flounder in 2005. Four- to 8-inch strip baits were often replaced by baits measuring 10 inches or more. And like their brethren at the CBBT, impatient anglers were abandoning old tide-dependent drifting techniques, opting for a more pro-active approach.

"Most of the guys up my way discovered power-drifting this past year," said Captain Rob Wilhoite, who runs charters out of New Point Campground on the Western Shore's Middle Peninsula. "They mounted 2- to 5-horsepower outboards on the transom to drift when current stopped. By doing that instead of using their primary engines, they could spend more time fishing instead of putting their boat in and out of gear. Plenty of flounder were caught by this method from the Cell to buoy 36A off Cape Charles. Most of the good flounder fishermen consistently brought back 5- to 8-pound flounder."

The Cell, like the CBBT, offers the deep structure and sharp dropoffs favored by the largest flounder. This manmade circular reef sitting in 30 to 60 feet of water has a 2,000-foot radius of ideal habitat for doormats that return year after year. Large flounder are usually abundant here through midsummer, but action begins to taper off by August.

Results from the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program, headed by Bain and Lucy, indicate site fidelity patterns for flounder in the Chesapeake Bay, both seasonally and from year to year. Tagged fish have been recaptured repeatedly in close proximity to where they were originally tagged, indicating a tendency to remain in a given area throughout the season.

Most of the tagging has involved smaller flounder, so it is not known for sure if the same fidelity is present in larger fish. Lucy speculates that the late-summer decline in large flounder catches at the Cell might be linked to a similar site-fidelity pattern.

"Heavy angling pressure on the larger fish at the Cell might result in some actual decline in numbers of larger flounder as the season progresses," he said. "Site-fidelity behavior might then result in fewer larger fish moving to the site from other areas later in the season."

In addition to the Cell itself, patches of rough bottom along a channel running northwest of the Cell about two miles to buoy 42 also hold good numbers of citation-sized flounder each year. This 5- to 6-square-mile area is best fished by drifting with long strip baits tapered to a point, causing them to flutter in the water. Once you catch a flounder, mark the spot and return to it. These small patches of rough bottom concentrate the flounder and eliminate wasted fishing time. Power-drifting can keep you over the sweet spots longer.