Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Well if you believe the data on the attachment, the leading indicators Recruitment and SSB are trending up and Fluke seem to be rebuilding. SSB which is Spawning Stock Biomass meaning the number of fish that are at an age where they can reproduce and recruitment meaning how many new fish were spawned. More breeders and more fish being born is good indicator of what's to come.

If the fishery is truly recovering and we're not in the doom and gloom phase like were were in the 90s when they put on the breaks with stricter regulations, why not give us more access and more liberal regulations? w

To me it it all comes down to access an having choices.

By access I mean the most favorable regulations (bag limits, fish length and number of days to fish) that we can get to what is a public resource that unlike in the past, seems to be rebuilding.

If you get more favorable access you have more choices. If the season is open longer you have more days you can choose to fish for something or not. If the size regulations are more liberal you have a chance to keep something for the table or you can choose to release them. As far as catch or release, I feel this is a personal choice based on your personal preferences or circumstances.

As far as killing the breeders, I don't think we should have regulations targeting only the larger fish we need to sustain the fishery but it's not like someone has a gun to your head and you have to keep those fish. There are however some issues with people who want to keep their limit and our current regulations forces them to catch and release a lot more fish to fill their limit which means more discards and the potential to kill more fish.

I don't pretend to have any magical answers here. The fact is no matter what our regs are, someone is not going to be happy so you wind up someplace in the middle and each side has to compromise.

For me, I just want to be able to fish for something as many days as I can and a have a realistic opportunity to keep something for the table if I choose to.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Rebuilding doesn't mean rebuilt. God forbid we actually err on the side of caution and be conservative about liberalizing regs until we're on more solid ground. I would like to see the regs go back to 18" - that 1" slot is nonsense on so many levels.

And btw, the "science" does not see an issue with larger size regulations. None of the studies pushing lowering size limits as a way to increase recruitment has passed peer review. Keep in mind that if the size limit went to 16", you have no idea if you're killing a 16" male or 16" female. A larger size limit, one can argue, at least gives harvested females multiple spawning cycles under their belt before being killed by anglers.

In terms of recruitment fluke seem to be very similar to striped bass, in the sense that very few females can contribute the entirety of offspring in any given year class. The entire biomass is also steadily trekking northwards. Release mortality is also likely to be much higher than currently understood (iirc multiple studies are being conducted now on delayed mortality across different species).

Focusing on lowering size limits - and arguing that that will actually result in more fluke down the road seems unwarranted and myopic. I get why "industry" voices would (conveniently) call for keeping smaller fish...but the average angler with no vested interest beyond conserving the fishery for future generations should view these attempts with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Hard to discount the points you made Reason... I could form a hard argument with or against you but at the end of the day, it's not what we think that changes things. It's what the system spits out, how the people in the system interpret it and the what wiggle room in the laws they are governed by.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Agree 100%. Caught over 3 dozen 18”+ fluke from shore (biggest was 24”s) and can only recall catching 3 in the 17-17.99” slot.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

This is exactly the issue thanks Gerry! Most think that logic, science and many other factors are in play that can or will be considered. Reality is that while the above is an ongoing process it ONLY factors in SOME logic. SOME science and SOME angler input ( which is scarce on the formats that do get looked at).

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

If you go back to all the documents when the bag limits were 8 fish at 16” there never was a recruitment problem .
Every time the limit pushed 18” and above recruitments def showed a drop .
So to say the science doesn’t show a negative effect keeping fish over 18” is incorrect .
And honestly that’s the bigger issue NMF doesn’t want to admit their own Data shows clearly that harvesting primarily female fish is what’s causing the recruitment problems .

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Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

What was the size limit in the years preceding the 90s collapse? 14.5"?

Rec regulations isn't the only input into this system. Many factors involved. That's why the NC fleet retained all that historical quota with no fluke off their coast for over a decade.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

The new regs are great. There are no male fish over 18" and that left us with killing breeders - the males died of old age or in a commercial net.

Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Those cutting houses have a great deal of political pull .
But hearing that may soon change .
Many states are tired of having large parts of their quota from state waters heading back to NC .
They are crushing areas and other economy’s to fill just their own .
May soon be laws in place that fish caught within our boundaries must only be landed in NJ , Ny , Mass etc .
Not sure how they stop what’s actually going on beyond the normal 3 mile state line . But seems local commercial fisherman in each state are pushing to retain their areas quota , instead of the big commercial fleets getting it all .

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Re: 2023 Fluke Regs Finalized
 

Agreed and hope it happens, but my point is these fish are moving north, 20 30 years ago the bulk of the biomass was indeed off the NC coast, that's how they got their quotas to begin with. Now we're at the southern range of the fishery. You can't expect that significant a shift w/o seeing year to year changes in landings for both rec and comms - it's not just a direct correlation of rec size regulations changing by a few inches over the decades.

When NY went 20 and 21" in the aughts the fluking was phenomenal - esp for big fish. I lost count of 6lb+ fish I had those years, with several 8s in the mix - all from a rental skiff with no electronics. But I am hesitant to say the larger size limit was the only cause, since western sound fluke has traditionally been cyclical and those regs put a lot of boats either out of business or targeting other species.