Fluke Regs this year
 

Just something to throw around. What's your opinion on the upcoming fluke regs? Does anyone think it will stay the same as last year or some type of size and amount change? what's your thoughts on this just to kick around.

John

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

3 fish at 18" is hard enough to achieve... If they decide to go to a 19" minimum size the daily limit should at least be brought back to 5 fish whatever works for the comerical fishery is gonna set the bar for the recreational fisherman in other words we are gonna probably get screwed in some shape or form

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

I’d be happy with 5 fish at 19”. We had so many trips throwing back multiple 20”+ fish back cause we already have a boat limit of fish

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

The party and charter boats will be choked out of business with a 19" limit. Hard to get many that size in late July and all of August. It cost about $115 for a family of four to fish on a half day boat. Add food, drinks, gas, tolls. That's an easy $175. How many trips with no fillets to bring home is a man going to pay for during the course of the fluke season? Maybe two. And 3/4 day party and charters boats cost three times as much. With all the rules and regulations today it's not even fun to go fishing. Depressing to say the least.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Even better let's make it 7 fish at 23". This would as already pointed out put the nail in the coffin for Party and Charter boats and coincide with an increase to the commercial quota resulting in even greater damage to the overall fishery. There's one answer here gentlemen, slot limit re-introduced, shut the fishery down to commercial harvest for two months during the spawn and take pressure off the female composition of the biomass.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

3@ 16.5"....2 @ 18"- 21" ... 1 trophy fish with tag! (21" +)

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

I am happy for you and the anglers you fish with.. You must all have a terrific skill set, as most of us just can't muster those kinds of numbers on any given day during the year, let alone with the consistency alluded to in your reply..


I realize there are some guys out there with the right boats that can get out to the deep water broken bottom and get a limit + every time.. However, most are using boats with limited range and must stay closer to shore, and in bays and tidal rivers. Others fluke fish on crowded party boats, or off jetties, piers, docks, inlets, the surf, etc... Tough for guys in those positions to get even say 2 keepers at 18'.. Honestly, a slot limit is THE ONLY way to keep the population in balance, and get the available fish distributed among all fluke anglers in an equitable manner.bob

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

SLOTS gaining traction for several species: http://www.mafmc.org/actions/sfsbsb-...-management-fw

Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Framework Framework on Conservation Equivalency, Block Island Sound Transit, and Slot Limits
The Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) jointly manage summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass. The Council and the ASMFC are developing a joint framework action and addendum to consider adding the following management options to the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan:

Conservation equivalency for the recreational black sea bass fishery,

Conservation equivalency rollover for summer flounder

Transit provisions for Block Island Sound for recreational and/or commercial fisheries for all three species, and

Slot limits for recreational fisheries for all three species

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Should have pushed for the slot fish instead of asking for status quo.
Would more than likely had a better chance then instead of having the refs shoved down our throats we got .

As far as only some boats being able to get to the fish to fulfill a limit at 18”.
BS.
WAS plenty of fish well under 3 miles from any marina last year north of Barney for sure , right through to Statin island .

Not just a few boats having limit trips daily , was lots of boats doing it .

.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Ok, Understood.. then WHY the slot limit??.. I mean according to a few guys, the fishing is great, getting a limit of fish is no problem, then why not just keep the status quo??.. Seriously. If the fishing is that good, limits are no real problem, why change anything at all??.. must just be a lot of pretty poor unskilled anglers out there that just don't know what they're doing, [such as myself], or a lot of fluke fishermen that just like to complain, despite good fishing... bob

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Slot limit was based on boats fishing skinny water being able to take a few fish home , AND to hope some of those smaller fish were males . Taking some pressure off our breeding females.

IMO many guys catch just as many fish as they had ten years ago , difference is with the keeper size being larger they don't catch as many keepers.
But we get charged a high mortality rate for the fish we throw back.

SO instead of getting charged poundage for fish getting released, allow those guys to keep a few fish and actually get to eat what they got charged for.

Many guys catching 20 - 30 shorts might actually be done fishing after keeping a few 17" fish also lowering the BS mortality quota.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Fish 90% of time in Cape May, ride to catch fluke anywhere from 7 miles to almost to 18. We fish a lot of days and like to think we are at least average. Honestly they could have made the limit 20 fish last year, as most day we were lucky to have 5 or six keepers for 3 to 4 guys. Crap year. drop the size few fish to take home and less harmful to the stock

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Why the slot limit for scup and black sea bass?

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Don't mean to stir the pot here but I think it's important for us all to understand what's happening. I know I'm a broken record on this topic but it's important enough to me and should be to everyone including the many business owners associated with the fishery so I'll accept that risk.

Two years ago, Dan (hammer4reel) and I, attended the public meeting in south NJ along with a hundred or so other people, a few from this site. Based on data included in the ASMFC Draft Addendum XXVlll handout, specifically the two attached charts addressing Recruitment (egg reproduction) and Catch (2nd and 3rd charts), I put together a data table to analyze trends over the last 20 - 30 years. A portion of that data table is reflected in the first chart which includes Recruitment, Total Catch (recreational and commercial combined), Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) and Recreational Size Limits.

Years covered are 1982 thru 2015. Numbers are rounded but representative of the data NMFS and ASMFC are basing their regulatory decisions on. The recruitment numbers are in thousands so for example in 1982, 61,000 is actually 61,000,000. PLEASE review the trends for each category in the first chart and it tells the entire story. Compare 1982 to 2015 individual years if you want the Reader's Digest version of whats happened. Egg reproduction was approximately 61,000,000 in '82 vs approximately 23,000,000 in '15. Catch 25,000 metric tons in '82 vs. 7,500 in '15. SSB (biomass) 24,000 metric tons in '82 vs. 36,250 in '15, an almost 50% increase. Also note the biomass was as high as 50,000 metric tons in 2002 and has been decreasing ever since. Size limit '82, there wasn't one compared to 18" in '15. Since NY/NJ combined harvest makes up about 85% of the annual fluke harvest, I used the weighted average of just those two states to arrive at average regulatory size limits each year.

The most significant relationship in the analysis which should be the primary focus of NMFS and ASMFC is egg reproduction decreasing from 61 million to 23 million from '82 to '15 while the biomass increased from 24,000 metric tons to 36,250 metric tons. Keep in mind again it reached a high of 50,000 metric tons in 2002. While the biomass exploded upward, egg reproduction fell off the cliff. That's a relational statistic that should jump out at everyone and be the single most important issue fisheries management is focused on. In reality, it doesn't appear to even be on their radar screen. You'll notice egg reproduction started tanking when size limits approached 17", the cross over point in Rutgers "Size and Sex Study" when 90% - 95% of all fluke at or over that size are females. Coincidence, not a chance.

Reason I bring this up is based on the two options Detour66 posted. In my opinion, there's really only one option, 3 @ 16.5". Option 2, 2 @18"-21" and a special bonus tag for one over 21" will only intensify the pressure on female fluke and kill Party and Charter boat businesses. NMFS and ASMFC have their heads in the sand if these are truly the options they're considering. Any option which doesn't address the decline in egg reproduction shouldn't even be considered. AND until commercial harvest during the spawn is addressed, the current state of the fishery won't improve. I'm not suggesting commercial quotas be cut, they should be reallocated to times of the year that won't coincide with and disrupt the spawn. For a fishery supposedly spiraling downward as much as this one to allow commercial harvest during the primary spawn without understanding the consequences on egg reproduction which is off approximately 75% - 80% from historical highs is inexplicable and essentially gross negligence by NMFS and ASMFC.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Dakota, I posted this on a previous thread about the price of supermarket fluke and I agree with your conclusion regarding the targeting of spawning fluke during times when those fish are very susceptible to commercial dragging. The migration routes to and from those spawning areas near the continental shelf are well-known and documented thereby making the spawning females extremely vulnerable and exploitable.

Many members and lurkers on this board are too young to remember seeing the party boat fluke fleets fishing just off the beaches along Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Patrons on those boats were seldom disappointed when they went home. They had fresh fillets for dinner. The fish were small by today's "standards" yet there were always fluke to be caught and kept and there was no controversy or overdone intervention. Then, the regulations began to appear and the size limits kept increasing. From that point on, the fear of the "sky falling" took over. More and more mature female fluke were being taken because of the increased size limits and eventually the smaller fluke that were so plentiful along the beaches began to dwindle. With that, the party boat fleet and bait shops and the tackle industry noticeably also began to wane and disappear. Did the increased size limits have an adverse affect on the spawning stocks? Maybe, but most of the larger females (even today) are offshore and on snags and rough bottom where most party boats (back in the day) did not fish. Recreational fishermen were satisfied with the smaller, meal-sized fluke along the beaches. Now, except for the Sandy Hook and Raritan Bay fluke fishing, most of the boats from the southern inlets have to fish well offshore to have a chance at a few keepers. Lately, even some of us who fish out of the northern end of Monmouth County head to deeper water to satisfy our limit catches rather than tossing back countless undersized fluke. How many undersized fluke did everyone throw back last year? I'll bet the numbers would floor you.

This was only a theory, but it should be considered. We let them go in the rivers. We let them go in the bays. We let them go along the beaches. We release thousands and thousands of consumable fluke each year. Where do our released fluke end up? Hmmmm?

https://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/..._quota2019.pdf

https://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/comquotas.htm

The new commercial regs for fluke landings seems to have been reduced for 2019 by about 70,000 pounds (if I'm reading the letter correctly). What stands out, though, is the total allotted pounds of commercially landed fluke for the months of January and February and September and October. The quotas are drastically increased during the months when fluke are either on their spawning grounds or massing during their migration to those spawning grounds. The commercial boats may land 1500 pounds of fluke per week during those periods. The commercial limits are encouraging fishing for the spawning stocks which will eventually hurt everyone's future fishing potential including those of the commercial guys. Wake Up! I could be wrong, but I'll bet the wholesale price of fluke increases substantially during the same period. If so, the stimulus to catch more spawning fish is also substantially increased. Change the distribution of the quotas to put less pressure on the spawning fish.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

How's this. 5 fish 17-20 inches. Anything over 20 goes back. That way you save the big breeder females. Only drawback no more pools.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Billfish I couldn't agree more with your comments. I firmly believe when you compare egg reproduction with size limit increases and plot it against Rutgers "Size and Sex Study" absolutely size increases played a major role in destroying egg reproduction by changing the gender composition of the biomass. The data, their data, supports that theory 100%.

When the season closes for recreational harvest in September, it should simultaneously close for commercial and be closed in October and November as well. From what I've read, the spawn is pretty much completed by the end of November. Again don't cut the commercial quota, re-allocate it throughout the year so it doesn't occur during the spawn. Close it for a minimum of 2 - 3 years and study the impact on egg reproduction. That's where the entire focus of NMFS and ASMFC needs to be. Of the thousands of fish released during the summer, how many do you actually think survive the commercial onslaught during the fall migration offshore. Numbers killed I suspect are significant. NMFS tracks hook and line mortality but has no idea what the mortality rate is with hygrading at sea since it's self reported by commercial operators. Anyone who disagrees, we're all entitled to our opinions but I find it impossible to believe operators whose livelihood depends on commercial fishing would steam 40, 50, 60 or more miles offshore and not harvest larger females which carry a 60-70% price premium back at the dock while tossing the smaller less valuable fluke back dead. NMFS has to come to grips with that problem. Offshore commercial harvest has been happening for years which others have pointed out, what's changed is the surge in demand for Sushi grade fluke (almost exclusively larger females) creating a retail price imbalance placing a target on the heads of larger female breeders. It's a game changer and killing the fishery three ways: disrupting the spawn, increasing dead discard of smaller fish while increasing the harvest of larger females. The options discussed for the last twenty years and for 2019 don't address any of these issues and it's a monumental mistake in the manner this fishery is being managed. An almost 70% decrease in egg reproduction over the last 25 years based on a significantly larger spawning stock biomass and someone help me understand how the options proposed for '19 or any prior year are addressing that problem.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Frugal my opinion, 17"-20" are still primarily females and doesn't address the commercial problem. Look again at the first chart I posted in my earlier email. I'd propose as a start a slot as low as 14" - 15" with maybe one fish allowed over 15" with no upside limit. If commercial operators can harvest 14" fish, recreational anglers should be afforded the same opportunity. That would greatly help Party and Charter boats, wouldn't effect one fish tournaments and most important would start reducing the pressure on larger female fluke. It's a good start.

Fishery management still has to address the commercial side of this and in my opinion the way to do it involves two changes. Level the retail price differential for large and smaller fluke so that a 14" fluke brings equivalent value as a 23" fish. That would immediately eliminate the culling or dead discard problem. Once operators hit their daily quota, no one would drop their nets again if there's no incremental value to be gained. How you change the market price is beyond my pay grade but someone should be able to figure it out if the health of the fishery is what's at stake.

Second as I've said, close the spawn season for 2-3 years and conduct studies on the impact on egg reproduction. That's the only path to recovery. Remember when we had a 14" - 15.5" inch size limit with an 8 fish possession limit, the biomass increased to it's highest level on record in 2002. In addition, look at overall catch, it was almost double in 2002 compared to today. Check the chart I posted. Coincidence, again I don't believe so. That in itself should highlight the problem and be the basis of establishing a sound recovery plan which can be monitored and quantified.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Slot fish regs are put in place for conservation not to increase the chances of someone being able to attain their limit. The smaller slot fish would allow people to fill their bag limit without forcing them to keep only keep 18" plus inch fluke, which for the most part are all females and breeders.

It's similar to the reasoning on Stripers where here in NJ your bonus tag used to be used for only larger fish and now it's for undersized fish...

http://www.27east.com/news/article.c...ass-Slot-Limit

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Lots of people concerned about the commercials being allowed to keep 14" Fluke when we're forced to take 18"...Why not let them fill their quota with 14 inch fish. If you make it 18 like us, what happens to all those 14 inch fish they catch in their nets? They'll wind up being dead discards and are wasted.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Gerry I'm actually not against commercials being allowed to keep 14" fish, I'm in favor of it for the reason you cited. What I said earlier is we should have a slot limit introduced where recreational anglers and Party and Charter boats have the same opportunity, both would take pressure off the harvest of the larger female breeders.

My issue with commercial is the retail price I've mentioned. If 14" fish aren't being hygraded with larger fluke which carry a significantly higher retail value, you're comment is correct. If they are, which I absolutely believe to be the case, then the smaller fluke become dead discard anyway. You know it's happening on these long range winter trips. No way commercial guys are coming back in from that far off shore if they can increase the value of their catch by 60% - 70% with larger fish. The issue is market price here, not size limit for commercials. As I said, make the price per pound for a 14" fish the same as a 23" fish and the entire issue of hygrading and dead discard goes away. This isn't a size / possession limit issue, this is an FMP / market price issue. Basically what I'm saying is regulate the retail market prices to commercial to take the incentive away from harvesting larger female fluke. The disparity in retail prices they're getting for larger fluke is causing the entire hygrading problem, correct it and problem solved.

Look at the attached video I posted two years ago. Look at the size fish being discarded, they have to be 5 lbs. minimum and up. Everyone of those fish thrown back plus every fish retained as part of their catch was more likely than not a female. If it was September, October or November, there's a good chance they were loaded with eggs. If that's what was discarded dead, imagine the size of the fish retained and how many smaller fish from 14" on up were killed in the process of catching their quota. One boat, multiply that by the number of commercial boats involved and extrapolate out how huge the dead discard number must be. You think on the FVTR (Fishing Vessel Trip Report) log the captain reported how many fish were thrown back dead, not a chance. It's an enormous problem being completely overlooked by fisheries management all because the commercial industry has lobbying clout recreational doesn't. It's tragic what's happening at sea and what's worse is it's all correctable. Gerry to my earlier point, if the price paid per lb. to commercials for 14" fish was the same as the price paid for those larger fish thrown overboard, those beautiful fluke tossed overboard dead would never have been harvested because there would have been no incremental economic value to what was probably already on board. Please check out the attached video, it'll make you sick. Absolute waste of the resource and in my opinion a major reason egg reproduction has all but collapsed over the last twenty years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inSN...ature=youtu.be

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

@Dakota560... What I posted was 1 option not 3 separate options. This way people can bring home some fish. It's just my opinion. I can see you are much more educated on the subject than I am. I am just putting in my own 2 cents. I think smaller slot fish would help the industry without wiping out the fish. That is something I do not want to see.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Detour I thought it was two options but understand your point. NMFS has ONLY attempted to manage this fishery by focusing on catch through size increases, possession limit reductions, shortened seasons or reduced overall quotas. It was working to some degree until they broached the high 16" / 17" size limit, then everything went to hell. Prior to that as their data shows, the balance between reduced catch from the early to mid 80's coupled with relatively strong reproduction numbers the biomass responded very favorably through 2002. When they continued increasing size limits beyond that point with the intent again of reducing catch, they created the unintended consequence of changing the gender composition of the biomass destroying egg reproduction in the process. Add to that what's happening with commercials and that's why the fishery is suffering.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

I have read what you are saying by many anglers and captains on almost every fishing site. And it makes sense to me. Now why doesn't it make sense to the NMFS with there size increase and possession limit policy? That is the real question and should be addressed! It seems to me if this bad policy isn't fixed the Fluke stocks will continue to decline and not at the fault of the hook and line fisherman!

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

In my opinion two reasons. Magnuson Stevens Act "MSA" which has been revised a few times since being enacted initially in 1976 with focus almost exclusively on attaining an arbitrary SSB thresh hold level never before attained. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can answer how that level was arrived at. So every year when SSB comes up short, immediately the mandate is reduce catch. That was the correct answer in the 80's when annual catch exceeded SSB. The biomass was being turned over every year, harvest was excessive and not sustainable. Once catch was brought under control, SSB started a significant climb until continued size limit increases caused a negative impact on reproduction causing SSB to reverse it ascent and provisions of MSA kicked in every year since starting in 2003 mandating again catch reductions year after year.

Second NMFS / ASMFC have to make this decision their way on their time frame and their terms otherwise by default they admit they've mismanaged the fishery for the last twenty or so years. No government agency is going to publicly acknowledge that, instead they hide behind the provisions enacted under MSA 42 years ago which is a convenient CYA excuse to fall back on. Basically we're stuck in a political black hole until the fishery is at the brink of collapse. At that time NMFS will have no choice but to step in, introduce a slot, maybe do what I suggested with the commercials which is absolutely needed but a long shot and say THEY saved the day. When that happens is anyone's guess.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Slot limit when the fishery collapses??.. Probably not.. they would just shut it down for recs most likely... bob

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Tom
They are hygrading , but not by throwing back smaller fish dead .
They use a net bigger than their minimum size so smaller fish swim through .
I asked about mortality of smaller fish when bigger ones cover the net .
They said most of the smaller fish get pushed up and swim through .
Much of what looks like smaller fluke being pulled is actually skates.
There are actually More skates pulled up in a haul than fluke .

While there are some guys out there who would break the law, for many of these guys the ocean is the only life they know.
They aren’t throwing back fish that someday would be money for them .

The guys making videos throwing back boxes of fluke are showing the waste nmfs is causing not allowing some bycatch while fishing for other species.
Makes them sick to do so.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Dan when you say they, who exactly are you referring to? If as you say the mesh sizes being used are larger than 14" to allow 14" fish to swim through, why do the commercial regulations allow harvest of 14" fish? To Gerry's point earlier, I'd prefer the mesh size be 14" to have less breeders harvested. What your suggesting is larger fluke are being targeted because of the price differential which defeats the whole point of the 14" minimum. As far as the by-catch issue is concerned, regardless of what NMFS allows, the net result (no pun intended) is a significant amount of fluke are being killed, tossed back dead and not reported in FVTR's. Reason they're thrown back dead doesn't matter, fact that they are does.

While I agree the ocean is in many cases the only thing commercial operators know, you simply have more faith in commercial fishing ideologies than most. I do a lot of reading and a lot of research and have read too many articles about illicit netting and lived to see too many species wiped out in my lifetime by commercial operations. Ling, whiting, cod, mackerel, weakfish (which never rebounded), bass in the 70's, herring which caused the reduction boats to come down here and start mopping up all the bunker as well as the damage Omega Protein does, flounder, fluke, porgies, sharks, tuna etc. It took decades for the porgy fishery to rebound, let's see how long that lasts. Blackfish are next and it's already happening. Any fishery targeted by commercial interests will be exploited until it's no longer economically viable and any by-catch that gets in the way killed as well as ocean habitat destroyed. I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch but where do you draw the line. World demand for fish combined with technological advances in commercial fishing equipment will destroy every fishery until there's not a species left to fish for. That doesn't mean every commercial operator has no conscience, it means there's a history which can't be ignored of one species after another being destroyed by commercial over fishing.

Hopefully we agree (based on the NMFS data we have to work with) fluke reproduction has been decimated over the last 25 or more years. Do you agree commercial fishing should be closed during the Fall migration until we better understand the impact it's having on egg reproduction and the spawning process in general? Until the cause of the reproduction problem is understood and the trend reversed, no amount of changes to catch, possession limits, length of season will compensate enough to rebuild this fishery. Last 15 years prove that point and why every year the options we get to choose from amount to nothing more than scraps. NMFS and ASMFC reshuffle the same deck every year while the fishery is hamstrung today with the same problems it faced 15 years ago.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

The new administration recently signed the "Modern Fishing Act". Does this act have the potential of correcting the unfair and ignorant regulations that are now in place? Can anyone answer this or is it a "wait and see" situation?

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Here's a link which explains a bit about the recently signed Modern Fishing Act. I believe it gives states and the recreational angling community more options or leverage but not sure it alters the provisions of MSA directly. There's others on the site much more versed in this who could chime in here.

http://www.trcp.org/2019/01/01/presi...dern-fish-act/

It's definitely a step in the right direction but with any legislation it needs to be time tested to understand what impact it's ultimately going to have. There's a lot of people fighting for recreational interests and giving their time, significant amounts at that. The biggest drawback as others have mentioned is recreational is not as well organized as commercial and we have a shadow of their funding and lobbying power. From my perspective, when fisheries management starts making the right decisions to rebuild stocks and when rebuilt gives both recreational anglers and commercial concerns equal access and equitable allocations unlike what's happening with the Sea Bass fishery, then the system is working.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

I wish if people wanted to eat fish they had to catch their own . I want to eat elk as much as some guy in Colorado wants to eat fluke .
Don’t see them sending me any elk .
But the case is our fishery feeds more than just us .
While everyone knows commercial fishing has hurt many species in the past , these local boats are highly watched .
F&G wait for them at the docks , and go with them to watch their weights caught .
Their boats are electronically monitored 365 days a year .
The free for all isn’t happening like it used to .

Beyond that unlike some who are drinking the koolaid I don’t believe the numbers NMFS gave us .
For more than a few reasons .
First is I personally see no lack of fish in any of the areas we fish from BARNEGET INLET to north of the Verizono.
No matter where we fish between them we find good bodies of fish .
Commercial guys fishing this area used to fish from BARNEY to FIRE ISLAND to meet their catch quotas. Most fish within 10 miles of their docks the whole season now.
Ask fisherman around what they are catching . Most will tell you they threw back 25 fish just short of 18”.

If we had a 17” limit they would be saying it was the best fluking ever .
NMFS has hit the magic number at 18” .

Talk to boats actually doing the netting for recruitments , they will tell you they are asked to drag areas they know won’t hold fish .
The numbers are bogus , catches can’t be good and NMFS numbers be correct.
.

If we really wanted to believe NMFS numbers as I pointed out at the meeting .we should go back to a 16” size limit
As recruitment by their numbers showed at an all time high with us taking a lot more fish home.

I still would like to know when a fluke drops a million eggs , are half male and half female ?
Or did Mother Nature make more females naturally .
As according to most info 98% of the fish we have been taking for years have been females.
And there isn’t anyone throwing them back.

REAL answers need to be addressed to create real management plans .

Instead IMO the government wants both recs and commercial fisherman to. Get frustrated and stop fishing .
Then they can sell the fish for political gain to other countries willing to pay a lot more money for the fish.


.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

One last post on this thread and I'll leave it at that. Dan you can have the last say, but clearly we view a number of issue impacting not just the fluke fishery but all fisheries differently.

Here's what I believe. Fact, increase in the world's population both domestic and abroad coupled with an explosion of health crazed consumers including the sushi market explosion have brought the demand for fish and shellfish to record levels. That demand has caused wholesale prices and the size of the global fish market (estimated at ~$150 billion in '19) to hit record levels as well.

Here's an excerpt from an article "The Rise and Fall of the Codfather, America's most notorious fishing criminal":

Last year, the U.S. government hauled in a big fish: Carlos Rafael, dubbed ‘the Codfather.’ For years, Raphael was the largest player in New England’s groundfish industry, but last September he was handed a four-year prison sentence and a partial seizure of his groundfish fleets and permits. The charges against him include false labelling and falsifying fish records in order to exceed fishing quotas, as well as cash smuggling and tax evasion. Illegal fishing is big business, and the Codfather’s story is just one example of how it is harming the oceans.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) Fishing around the world has an estimated value of $23 billion USD annually and accounts for up to 30 per cent of global catches.

One person essentially ignored every regulation involving multiple species, primarily ground fish, paid $1.75 million dollars to have his scales altered to under report actual weights, falsified FVTR reports (one rare instance when he got caught he reported 1,365 lbs of scallops on board when in fact he had 12,356 lbs.), mislabeled fish to avoid daily and seasonal quota limitations, bypassed the supply chain by selling directly to the NY based black market, owned distribution outlets himself to control and circumvent regulatory compliance and got away with it for 30 years. Law enforcement officials were found to be involved to pull it off. A majority of the commercial operators in New Bedford knew about it but elected to either turn a blind eye out of fear or simply by choice so it went undetected for decades. It wasn't until the FBI got involved (for money laundering cash from black market sales in NY) that NMFS and F&G got involved in a joint sting operation which ultimately took him down. If not for the FBI's money laundering investigation, he'd still be in business or someone else would have purchased his operation for the $175 million he was asking.

Story is well documented and there are hundreds of articles on-line you can read which illustrate just how out of control the commercial industry is with illicit practices. Don't think the "Belford Pirates" earned that distinction because they were "Guardians of the Ocean".

Dan we agree that a majority of commercial operators play by the rules because they're upstanding people and or they have to. Their livelihood depends on it and if caught and they lose their permit(s) it's game over for them. I believe a minority of operators don't play by the rules causing extensive damage to every fishery they target. As much as efforts have been stepped up to address compliance, lack of enforcement resources and based on the sheer amount of dollars involved in this industry, I don't agree enforcement is nearly as iron clad as you make it appear. We simply can disagree on that point.

Question for you, boat sails off shore during winter harvest. Not 100% certain of daily / weekly limits but let's assume it's 1,500 lbs. per trip. Boats are electronically monitored as you mentioned but there's no one from F&G on board which means the catch is not monitored or weighed until it's back at the dock. Assume on this trip, 5,000 lbs of fluke is harvested, operator calls in 2 hours in advance of the 6:00 am to 6:00 pm weigh-in guidelines so F&G is at the docks to meet the boat as required but before he returns, he offloads 3,500 lbs of his catch to a runner boat 5 miles offshore that runs it up to NY harbor, offloads it in any of a thousand different places without risk of detection, gets $5 / lb. for his efforts or $17.5k more for the trip and it's on the menu in NY restaurants later that evening selling for $40 a plate. How would that be detected? Think that doesn't happen? Carlos Raphael made multiple tens of millions a year and accumulated a fortune basically doing just that. With the limited resources F&G is hamstrung with, who would even know?

As far as the 2018 fluke season is concerned, we must have fished different oceans. Since our boat was destroyed in the Seaport Inlet Fire, we charter multiple times a year now. In June and July I had six charters scheduled (won't mention boat names but they were reputable and local). One was cancelled due to weather, two were cancelled because we were told the fluke fishing was terrible, one we went on and 5 keepers were caught between six very good fisherman plus the captain and mate with every boat around us having the same kind of day and one we were told to fish for a different species because the fluke fishing was that bad. August improved dramatically for just about everyone and we had one trip in early September with a very well known local charter and had an outstanding trip. If you based your opinion about the health of every fishery on his catches and reputation alone you'd swear every fishery was in great shape. I'm sure most of you know without naming names who I'm referring to. I think for most, even though I know you don't agree, 2018 wasn't just a mediocre year it was a very off year for the majority even though the network you run with would say otherwise.

As far as the NMFS data and recruitment numbers we have to work with, it is what it is. I don't buy the argument that the numbers are wrong for the last 30 years. This isn't a recent anomaly and if your implying the numbers are wrong you're de facto implying Rutgers "Sex and Size" study is wrong. You yourself in this thread said commercial operators increased mesh limits to allow 14" fish to escape their nets. First I heard that and it defeats the entire purpose of them being given a 14" size limit to begin with which again means they're targeting larger females. I don't believe between the weight of the catch and pressure caused by the trawl that smaller fish covered up by larger fluke will find their way to the top and swim back out unscathed. So again what that means is the recreational and commercial harvest consists almost entirely of female fluke. Combine that with commercial harvest during the spawn without understanding the impact it has on egg production and the numbers are what I'd expect. What other fishery do you know that has data strongly suggesting a reproduction problem and allows commercial harvest or any harvest during the spawn. How can any fishery survive when you harvest nothing but females and commercial harvest pounds the biomass during the spawn. Answer is it can't and the data is exactly what I 'd expect it to be based not on science but based on common sense.

Dan you can have the last say, everyone knows my position not just of the summer flounder fishery but fishery management in general. There's not a fishery with commercial exposure that will survive without regulations, not with $150 billion dollars at stake. Recreational anglers fish because they enjoy it, commercials fish to profit and make a living, inherent conflict in motivations. As I said, I believe a high percentage of second and third generation commercial operators play by the rules but a minority percentage don't and are destroying one fishery after another at everyone else's expense. Current enforcement resources can't possibly control what's going on at sea, it's simply not humanely possible.

There's other issues at play here but in my humble opinion there's three things which should be considered. Re-establish slot and I would make it 14" - 15", somewhere in that range. Start with three fish possession limit initially, 2 fish within the slot and one fish over 18". That should help party and charter boats and allow a big fish for recreational one fish tournaments. Second, when the recreational season ends, the commercial season does as well through December 1 so the spawn is protected. Leave their annual quota the same, re-allocate the timing of the harvest so as not to coincide with the spawn. Third have the powers to be address the wholesale price differential between smaller and larger fluke to eliminate the problem of hygrading. I realize two and three are a long shot with commercial lobbying power but they're changes which need to be considered and in my opinion adopted. After three years, re-assess the impact on the biomass and recruitment and based on the data and science plot the course accordingly. In addition, if enforcement isn't addressed, regulations won't matter if the above statistic is remotely correct in that 30% of annual harvest goes unreported. In addition, a study should be conducted both offshore and inshore to track and understand more of where the reproduction problem is occurring. It shouldn't be difficult to assess and in my opinion is the key to rebuilding this fishery.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Tom
There is no doubt there will always be the guys who cheat .
And they def can cause major damage .
The research set aside program was stopped after a boat payed for 30000 pounds was caught selling 289000 pounds .

My point about the commercial guys who have fished the ocean their whole lives are seeing more fluke than ever.
Many other things they fish for have had fluke showing up as bycatch in places they hadn’t before .
I think they have more knowledge on fish numbers than the numbers NMFS gives us .

We had another great season last year .and traveled less to get to good bodies of fish than years past .

Find the bait , find the fish .
What has def helped the recreational fishing in our area is the betters seasons have been closed through the summer . That leaves much more fish for us to catch than years past when they were fishing the same areas as us daily.

I also see all the boats regularly fishing tournaments to be doing just as well as we did .
They always said 10 % of the fisherman catch 90% of the fish .
And reading here on many posts I believe it’s pretty accurate .

The charter captain you make mention of proves daily , with good fisherman on board and his expertise their are LOTS of fish to be caught where 200 other boats claim there isn’t a fish to be found.

.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

I believe that $150 billion number includes imported seafood. Several years ago NMFS decided to include imports to inflate the economic value of the commercial fishery. By the way, this was done despite the objection of the vast majority of responders to the proposed change. If 90% of the seafood is imported, it means that the value of the commercial fishery is really about $15 billion.

I learned more from the above posts than any other website or publication on this matter. Does anyone think to meet with the commercial groups to get a dialog going about this and see if we both can benefit from a unified front?

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Oh there’s another major draw back you don’t realize. If you implement something like you’re thinking our season would be 6 weeks.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

One part of the “logic” that I never understood concerns the throw back mortality rate.....if they are basing in part what we can keep (size and bag limit) on what’s going to die when we throw it back why then wouldn’t you let us keep more of the ones that are doomed to die? If the science truly says that a large percentage of what we release dies, Why implement regs that increases the number of fish we release?

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

If everyone is concerned about the fluke fishery for the future which it seems like everyone is than the approach should be taken into consideration in comparison to the blue fin tuna fishery have a set number of pounds allocated for a season and when that amount of pounds is reached seasons closed set a size limit that will make everybody happy that won't kill the party boat fishing industry and take it from there

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

The $150 billion in my earlier post was to reflect the worldwide value of the seafood market. I mentioned it to present scale of the industry and amount of money involved which in my opinion influences many things including legislation and behavior. Wasn't intended as a breakdown by country or effort to quantify the size of the US commercial fishery. Point is, demand has grown exponentially and will continue to do so. Just realized the number for '19 is ~$135 billion, still a very significant number and as you can see is expected and will continue to grow. Source is attached.

As far as part two of your post, I think the relationship between both parties is somewhat comparable to the Hatfield's and the McCoy's. Personally I don't believe "Unified Front" is a recognizable term between the recreational community and commercial industry unfortunately. Good idea but personally just don't see it happening, would love to be proven wrong.

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Re: Fluke Regs this year
 

Review the attached charts from the data table I posed earlier. The data supports the fact that catch or pounds as you referred to it is not the problem. We were harvesting a significantly higher percentage of the biomass and catch totals (metric tonnage) in the absolute between the years 1989 and 2002 than today and during those years the biomass increased ~600%. Now compare that to the chart recruitment relative to size limit increases beginning around 2000 showing an absolute inverse relationship between size limit increases and reduction in recruitment statistics over the last 15 years. Last chart shows recruitment numbers in the absolute, it's been decimated and remember it's fallen off a cliff at a time when the biomass is significantly larger. Again that's a trend which should be on everyone's radar screen and the single most important issue fisheries management should be focusing in on.

Problem with your suggestion is it's basically what the angling community has been asking for over the last few decades. Problem is twofold. Compliance with Magnuson Stevens Act provisions and NMFS and ASMFC focusing solely on catch and their past practices of ONLY increasing size limits, reducing possession limits and overall harvest totals. From what I understand, data and conclusions from Rutgers "Sex and Length" study indicating most fluke landed at 18" are females is being incorporated in Peer Review so hopefully at some point in the next year or two a slot size will be introduced. It's one of several steps necessary in my opinion to the recovery of this fishery.