Full moon

[Broad Bill]

Tomorrow is the full moon. Should be a massive wave of fluke flooding our waters. Even with the south wind and colder water, if fishing doesn't pick up this upcoming week I'd be very concerned about the remainder of the season and what might be happening to this fishery. These fish have followed this migration pattern for a hundred years, we don't see a sharp increase in keepers over the next few weeks I'd be very concerned. Hope guys in the tournament today experienced better results

[Capt John]

Start being concerned Bill

[Togfather2530]

The fishery is in the toilet. Half-day Sea Robin trips. Fish all day to catch next to nothing but small sea robins.Years ago you caught 200 fish a day in the bay.

[Broad Bill]

The fishery is in the toilet. Half-day Sea Robin trips. Fish all day to catch next to nothing but small sea robins. Years ago you caught 200 fish a day in the bay.

Since 2008 for NJ, NY, Ct and RI, the size minimums other than a few years for a few states have exceeded 18" with NY having the highest size minimums on record in 2009 and 2010 at 21" and RI having the same in 2009. Commercial sector the entire time was targeting larger breeders while killing massive amounts of juvenile fish, the future of the stock. Most don't believe me when I say it but I'd bet, and there's data which has passed peer review to support this statement, commercial dead discard exceeds harvest levels meaning if they harvest 10,000,000 lbs. they kill and discard 10,000,000 lbs. of younger less valuable age group fish in the process. And if you do the math since commercial receives a higher quota than recreational, approximately 75% of the fish killed annually through harvest and discard mortality combined comes from the commercial sector and maybe 25% from the recreational sector. And that's before consideration for the amount of illicit netting which occurs in the commercial sector or the amount of illegal harvest taking place in the recreational sector. Does anyone honestly believe the commercial sector is going to take a 30% quota reduction this year and not attempt to compensate for those lower quotas by harvesting larger higher valued older age class fish to maximize catch values and toss back everything else dead. It's their livelihood, most would do the same to put food on the table, make a living and stay in business.

Management and regulations are supposed to manage the fishery so the fishery is sustainable while a balance exists to accommodate the users of the resource. That's not happening and hasn't been for some time. You simply can't continue killing off the breeding population, killing younger age classes in the process, pounding the stock during the spawn and expect any other results than what we're seeing. Not trying to be overly dramatic but it doesn't take a genius to realize regulations over the last decade and a half have caught up with this fishery and are killing it while the people and bodies responsible for those decisions sit by defending their failed policies.

Policies need to change and in the absence of that happening more of the same will be what we experience going forward. NMFS and the regulatory agencies and states did exactly the same thing with stripers and you can see where that fishery ended leading to the unfortunate regulations we have today. Fluke is headed in the same direction for the same reasons.

[hartattack]

BILL: your passion and insight are invaluable. Onetime poster here and friend to many is Tom Smith, dakota560. Tom devoted many hours and years pointing out the Ludacrisy of the regs, monitoring, comm vs rec disparity, etc. You can climb down one of his rabbit holes here: https://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111099&highlight=Dakota

Battling City Hall on the state and fed levels is futile, but educating your peers is a good side effect but unfortunately small consolation

[Pennsy Guy]

I've said this on here several years ago: No matter what logical arguments we, the recreational fishers, put forth, nothing is going to change for the better for the recs., only the commercials will benefit!
I looked up "NMFS origin" again; it takes you to Wikipedia and in the opening paragraph, it states, among other intentions of NMFS, which was federally formed in 1871 as the "Commission of Fish and Fisheries", "...prevent lost economic potential...". That was 150 years ago...you honestly think it has changed? That was over concerns about decreased commercial fish catches
in New England...
NMFS, now incorporated into NOAA is still the same, damn the recs, full speed ahead for the comms.
I work in a Giant Food Market here in Pa. (in Jersey, we're Stop 'n Shop) and I look at the "country of origin" of fish; rarely do I see USA, it's always Maylasia, Viet Nam or some other foreign nation. Even the "tailpipe tuna" yellowfin tuna medallions come from some country whose product I'd never consume--only buy 2 lb. farm-raised frozen shrimp. We never have Gulf -caught shrimp; Hell, we hardly ever have American caught denizens of the deep--or shallows, for that matter...

Enough said---waiting for Gambler tuna to start...:)

[june181901]

If it doesn't pick up soon a couple of more party boats amongst AH, Belmar and PP will be up for sale. Folks want to take dinner home!

[Gobigblue]

Plenty of fluke off the coast of Cape Cod. Recently caught a limit is 20+ inch fish in less than an hour. The stock is real healthy up that way

[Broad Bill]

Plenty of fluke off the coast of Cape Cod. Recently caught a limit is 20+ inch fish in less than an hour. The stock is real healthy up that way

Gobigblue,

And I'm sure Massachusetts has had the same trend of south winds that New Jersey has had and probably even colder inshore water. Makes one wonder then about the overall health of the stock locally and cold water theories as to why the fishing has been way off this year. Check out the following link for the 2024 commercial summer flounder quotas by state.

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/summer-flounder/commercial

NJ and NY alone have over 2.1 million lbs. Add NC and Virginia which harvest most of their quotas off our coast in the winter months and add another 4.3 million lbs. Collectively from those four states alone that's 6.4 million lbs or almost 73% of the commercial harvest from NY / NJ waters. Add in another 1.6 million lbs for CT and RI quotas being harvested from the SNE/MA biomass and 90% of commercial quotas are being harvested from the last remaining concentration of the stock in waters off our coast. To put these numbers in perspective, the commercial harvest quota went from 15.3 million lbs. for each year 2022 / 2023 to 8.79 million lbs. in 2024. If that's the haircut commercials took you know this stock is in dire trouble. 2022 / 2023 commercial quotas by state for comparison sake for anyone who doubts these numbers.

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/bulletin/noaa-fisheries-approves-2022-and-2023-summer-flounder-scup-and-black-sea-bass

Massachusettes has a 2024 quota of approximately 600,000 lbs or 1/10th what commercials from the four states mentioned are taking locally off NJ / NY. Now double those numbers for discard mortality and it's no wonder Massachusett's fishery from a relative stand point is in better shape. But it won't be for long as NC and VA boats push further north to fill their quotas each and every year as they deplete the southern most edge of the remaining biomass as they did with the Chesapeake biomass.

Take note of New Hampshire's quota, 40 lbs. Apparently that's not a typo. If management doesn't start managing this stock for the long term sustainability of the fishery, it won't be long before that's every state's annual quota.

[Duffman]

BILL: your passion and insight are invaluable. Onetime poster here and friend to many is Tom Smith, dakota560. Tom devoted many hours and years pointing out the Ludacrisy of the regs, monitoring, comm vs rec disparity, etc. You can climb down one of his rabbit holes here: https://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111099&highlight=Dakota

Battling City Hall on the state and fed levels is futile, but educating your peers is a good side effect but unfortunately small consolation

Dakota560 and Broad Bill are one in the same no?

[Broad Bill]

And here's the residual consequences of what's happening in this fishery which will be significant. I don't have current information on the number of registered commercial operators in the Mid Atlantic region but it's significant. If large and jumbo fluke are getting on average $3 / lb. at the docks, the commercial quota just lost almost 7 million lbs in quota in 2024 or $21 million dollars in wholesale catch value. If the price is $5 / lb. make that $35 million in lost revenue.

If you're a commercial boat owner, how do you compensate for that loss in revenue. From the standpoint of the fishery itself, you target large and jumbo fluke even more now with higher wholesale values which is going to further increase discard mortality and remove even more of the larger breeders from the stock. From outside the fishery, what other stocks do they target to compensate for an almost 45% decrease in quota. Winter flounder, that fisheries already been destroyed. Bluefish, they're in a rebuilding state themselves. Whiting or ling, don't think so. Blackfish, good luck with that. Squid, maybe for anyone with a multi species permit. Sea bass, maybe but we all know what's happened with those quotas even as the stocks been more than rebuilt. Porgies, stock has it's own problems. The ripple effect of these asinine short sided outdated regulations will have consequences to every fishery and every small business dependent on those resources.

[Broad Bill]

Dakota560 and Broad Bill are one in the same no?

First does it matter? Second no we're not one in the same. I've been fortunate to be good friends with Dakota and I very much followed his posts when he was a member of the site. He's also been good enough to share his five years of research with me which I thought was important to continue sharing here and on other sites to educate the public about what's happening to these valuable fisheries, particularly with fluke.

[Broad Bill]

For anyone still undecided about what's happening to what might be the most important fishery to the Mid-Atlantic States, read the reports of a non sponsor, probably the best charter boat captain in the state, and carefully read his reports. As predicted, the July full moon brought in a new wave or body of fish. It always has and always will. Problem is there are very few fish over 18". The regulations in this fishery over the last two decades have killed off the mega breeders of this stock and those same regulation will cause an acceleration of that decline going forward. Fish are being caught in good numbers by people in the know, fish over 18" which on average are 4 year old age class females or 6 year old age class males are being removed from the stock at an alarming and accelerated rate while younger age classes are being killed in the process. There's no winning result with that trend.

Fishing will remain sketchy until the next wave arrives during the August full moon, which will be the last wave migrating west, and water temperatures aren't going to make a difference one bit and the mix of age classes won't change so there might be a slight uptick but it won't be of significance and 2024 will go down as the worst fluke season since the late 80's / early 90's. September, the fish as always will school up in highly concentrated schools and start their easterly migration and the commercials again will kill massive amounts of younger age classes in the process of harvesting the few remaining older age classes meaning the spawn as always will be annihilated, recruitment levels will fall far short of historical levels and discard mortality will run at rates greater than 100% of harvest. We're staring at the tail end of a dying fishery.

[TwoDDs]

For anyone still undecided about what's happening to what might be the most important fishery to the Mid-Atlantic States, read the reports of a non sponsor, probably the best charter boat captain in the state, and carefully read his reports. As predicted, the July full moon brought in a new wave or body of fish. It always has and always will. Problem is there are very few fish over 18". The regulations in this fishery over the last two decades have killed off the mega breeders of this stock and those same regulation will cause an acceleration of that decline going forward. Fish are being caught in good numbers by people in the know, fish over 18" which on average are 4 year old age class females or 6 year old age class males are being removed from the stock at an alarming and accelerated rate while younger age classes are being killed in the process. There's no winning result with that trend.

Fishing will remain sketchy until the next wave arrives during the August full moon, which will be the last wave migrating west, and water temperatures aren't going to make a difference one bit and the mix of age classes won't change so there might be a slight uptick but it won't be of significance and 2024 will go down as the worst fluke season since the late 80's / early 90's. September, the fish as always will school up in highly concentrated schools and start their easterly migration and the commercials again will kill massive amounts of younger age classes in the process of harvesting the few remaining older age classes meaning the spawn as always will be annihilated, recruitment levels will fall far short of historical levels and discard mortality will run at rates greater than 100% of harvest. We're staring at the tail end of a dying fishery.

Until the Recreational sector initiates a lawsuit against the Secretary of Commerce, NOAA and NMFS, challenging the disparity of allocations, size limits, etc., nothing will change.
To my knowledge, that has never happened.

I personally agree, that we're staring at the tail end of another dying fishery.

[dales529]

Until the Recreational sector initiates a lawsuit against the Secretary of Commerce, NOAA and NMFS, challenging the disparity of allocations, size limits, etc., nothing will change.
To my knowledge, that has never happened.

I personally agree, that we're staring at the tail end of another dying fishery.

Here you go. Probably the first of many. Not sure where it goes on legality but they are trying.
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/florida-fishermen-s-lawsuit-claims-us-fishery-management-councils-are-unconstitutional

[Broad Bill]

Any time we see drastic changes in regulations in a fishery, it means the regulations in place in the preceding years leading to those cuts where completely ineffective. This year's fluke, last year's stripers, makos, bluefish and certainly an 80% decrease in gag grouper etc. translated means the management bodies responsible for these fisheries were implementing completely failed regulations. With the resources they have available, you have to wonder how that's possible if they know what they're doing. If any of us owned a business and one year you announced you had to cut your work force by 80%, the first question would be what the hell happened, what caused it and why didn't anyone see it coming and react to it sooner. Then they'd fire the entire management team.

Has anyone been told why the commercial quota for fluke was changed from 15.3 million pounds to 8.7 million or why recreational quotas were slashed and why the agencies responsible for managing it had to make that drastic a cut? I wasn't but I believe the fishing results we're seeing now are the answer to that question which is we've decimated the spawning stock of this fishery with brutal policy decisions and the disastrous consequences of those decisions are now becoming a reality which is we've destroyed the recruitment capability of this stock when the regulation targeted the mega breeders and were killing millions of juvenile and younger age class fish in the process. Good luck finding keepers in this environment. This fishery is in trouble while politicians and management morons sit by stroking their egos and making decisions based on what's best for their pockets or the states they represent and not based on what's needed to save the fishery.

[hartattack]

If you fish NY waters please be aware that minimum size increases from 19" to 19.5" beginning Aug 2 :eek:

[TwoDDs]

Here you go. Probably the first of many. Not sure where it goes on legality but they are trying.
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/florida-fishermen-s-lawsuit-claims-us-fishery-management-councils-are-unconstitutional

Thanks.
The plaintiffs referenced in this article seem to be commercials.