Fluke Along The Beach

[Billfish715]

Who, here, remembers when fluke fishing was simple and somewhat easy? If you fished out of Belmar or Manasquan, you simply headed out of the inlet and turned north or south, motored for a short distance, stopped the engine and started fishing. The party boats were always insight of the people on the beach. The boats never really had to go too far offshore and it really gave the patrons maximum fishing time. The fluke were never huge. They didn't have to be. If people could get a few sandwich sized fillets to take home, it was a great day. My, how times have changed.

No one fishes along the beaches anymore. There is a feeling among many fishermen that unless they catch a keeper, the trip was a waste of money. Like it or not, it is more true than false. If fishermen keep going home empty-handed, you can't expect the industry to hang on for too long. Many of you won't even know about the many party boats that once were a trademark of the Jersey Shore.

We can go on and on about size limits and population numbers and government interference but my question is more about the observation that there appears to be an absence of any number of fluke along the beaches like there used to be. I know, nobody is fishing for them, but there has to be a reason why that is. If they were there, boats would be fishing for them. How much do you think the beach restoration projects have affected the fluke fishing along the beaches? Are the artificial reefs short stopping the fluke from moving in closer to the shore?

I'll save this for another time, but the small fluke were what made the party boat industry what it was. The regulations limiting the size of those fluke are why so many boat captains went out of business.

[Capt Sal]

Raritan Bay should have a 17'' bag limit.Shame to have your boat in a slip in the West end of the bay and have to run 20 miles to catch fluke.The bay is loaded but the 18'' size limits sucks! Not that long ago the Triangle was as far as you had to go!

[hammer4reel]

Plenty of fluke along the beach .
And also plenty of boats on those fish .

[dakota560]

Very easy answer. The regulations in place between the late 80's and 2000 promoted the best growth this fishery ever experienced. Recreational size limit was either 13" or 14" as was commercial. Recruitment was strong, discards and discard mortality were extremely low compared to today, stock experienced it's most significant growth ever and there was an inherent balance in the harvest of males and females which has now been destroyed, by both commercial due to selective harvest and recreational because of the minimum size regulations were hamstrung by.

When fisheries management changed the size minimums for recreational to 18" and 19" and even 21" at one point for NY and 19.5" for CT and RI, everything changed. Basically age class fish today 2 yrs and younger die from recreational mandated discards, natural mortality or commercial discard in the process of selectively targeting larger more valuable fish. So what's left is only larger fish being harvested by both commercial and recreational sectors. That's a formula for the beginning of the end.

This fishery will fail just as it did in the late 80's when commercial concerns targeted larger fish, killed all the breeders and developed the winter offshore fishery. There is zero doubt the summer flounder fishery will fail again which shouldn't be a cause for concern for the recreational community because basically the fisheries been taken away from them already.

And if anyone wants the statistics which no one seems to care about, in 1983 there were 193 million fish in the biomass age class 2 years or younger. Fast forward to 2017 that number fell to 86 million or over 100,000,000 less younger age class fish. And of that 86 million, 42 million were juveniles, one year or less, and non harvest-able even at 14" for commercial operators. You can pretty much see where this fishery is headed. Complete mismanagement.

[FISHGERE]

Raritan Bay should have a 17'' bag limit.Shame to have your boat in a slip in the West end of the bay and have to run 20 miles to catch fluke.The bay is loaded but the 18'' size limits sucks! Not that long ago the Triangle was as far as you had to go!

only problem is perth amboy raw sewer discharge at the end of fayette st gross just sold a grady had docked at wagners waste of time and money water this spring was rust colored horrible wasn't running out to the ocean either

[Billfish715]

Plenty of fluke along the beach .
And also plenty of boats on those fish .
Dan, Along the beach, to me, was from the beach to about 3/4 of a mile. The party boats would never have to go far from land, either did the private boats. There were plenty of fluke for dinner albeit 14-16 inch fluke. Maybe, if we could keep some of those fish, more people would target them. Right now, I’d say that they were not there but we won’t know unless someone is willing to fish for them.

[Gumada]

Also tactics changed, years ago most if not all party boats dragged bait. Keeping clear of the rocks and rough stuff and fishing on the sandy dips and cuts close to shore. Now a days most people jig for fluke, making the rough stuff targetable and preferred. Just a thought...

[Duffman]

“appears to be an absence of any number of fluke along the beaches like there used to be“

I don’t find that to be the case at all. What are you judging that observation on?

[bulletbob]

Fish go where there is food period... That means all fish of any species ...
They will go out of preferred temp, they will go out of preferred habitat/structure, indeed they will go completely and totally out of their inherent "design" if you will -for food. I can name many different examples, but it would make this response way to long...

If there is sufficient food in the zone from the tideline out to say a mile or so, they will be there... Perhaps not always the biggest, but they have NOT abandoned their traditional habitat.
These near shore areas don't get fished as heavily as in years past, simply because the deeper structure holds bigger fish, thats about the extent of it... If for some reason whatever they eat near shore were to disappear, then I would agree there was a problem... Plenty of fluke along the beaches, but everyone wants "keepers".. Can't say I blame them.,,, bob