North Carolina 2024 fluke season:

[AndyS]

State officials: No NC recreational flounder season in 2024
The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries announced the recreational flounder season will not open this year “in order to preserve the southern flounder resource."

Citing continuing pressures on the fishery, state officials announced Thursday that there will be no recreational flounder season in 2024.

The move comes after years of smaller and smaller windows for recreational fishermen to catch the popular fish, culminating in last year's short two-week harvest window.

But officials said even that short fishing period was too much for the already depleted flounder fishery.

"Estimates from 2023 indicate the recreational catch exceeded the quota allowed under a stock rebuilding plan that was included in Amendment 3 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan and adopted by the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission," stated a release from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.

[Broad Bill]

So you're aware, that's southern flounder which is a different species than our fluke. But interestingly, they believe the problem is the historical size minimum being used favored the harvest of females which was borne out in a significant decline in recruitment so they implemented a 6 " slot between 12"-18" to harvest more males. Harvest younger age classes with a more balanced ratio of males to females being harvested to protect female breeders and reduce discard mortality. Unfortunately the stock was so impaired by their delayed response to the problem they've now implemented a moratorium. If management doesn't wake up soon, our northern stock will experience the same fate.

Few other factors which should enrage the recreational sector. The commercial sector already gets 70% of the yearly quota and their 2024 season hasn't been impacted at all. Second, bye catch of juvenile Southern flounder and weakfish from shrimp netting in North Carolina is absolutely out of control and not factored into dead discard mortality for the commercial fishery. It's estimated 60,000 lbs. of juvenile 3" summer flounder are killed annually by shrimp netting, can you imagine how many juvenile fish, weakfish and southern flounder, are being killed annually by commercial shrimpers. I remember the recent post questioning where all the spike weakfish we see migrating south in the fall go the following year, there's your answer. Check out the video in the below link, complete and utter waste of a valuable resource by one state. Should never be allowed, no different than what Virginia is doing to the bunker population in the Chesapeake with Omega One. These are coastal migratory species that do not belong to one state and no one state should be able to negatively impact the future sustainability of the stock for their own money grab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUvgB6R1Xs0

Check out the waste from one trawl at around the 7 minute mark. 4 lbs. of juvenile waste for every pound of shrimp harvested and we wonder what's happening in these fisheries. Notice the number of small summer flounder and weakfish on the deck. Same is happening in our own back yard with summer flounder and that stock will ultimately succumb to that abuse.

[AndyS]

I lived in N.C. for a short period of time and at no point did I see people using a rod and reel for these fish, it was all spear fishing at night in the tributaries.

[kevin kovach]

That's actually incorrect. The flounder species in nc is 90 percent fluke. There are some southern flounder in the southern part of the state but majority are fluke. And I really don't feel bad for them. They used to have the best fluke fishery on the east coast. I remember vacationing there on the outer banks when I was a kid and you could catch 50 a day from the bank at the inlet. Then they let the commercial boats get out of hand with virtually no havest limit about 25 to 30 years ago, ever since it has been going down hill. Now the rec fisherman suffer. Also keep in mind these draggers are still in business. You can see these nc boats off loading fluke in cape may in winter, fishing our grounds around the lobster claw and tea cup. This biomass is largely njs summer fluke. I have seen it first hand , while nj commercial boats couldn't fish because there quota was full. Yet out of state boats could still offload using their states quota. It's really screwed up.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by kevin kovach

That's actually incorrect. The flounder species in nc is 90 percent fluke. There are some southern flounder in the southern part of the state but majority are fluke. And I really don't feel bad for them. They used to have the best fluke fishery on the east coast. I remember vacationing there on the outer banks when I was a kid and you could catch 50 a day from the bank at the inlet. Then they let the commercial boats get out of hand with virtually no havest limit about 25 to 30 years ago, ever since it has been going down hill. Now the rec fisherman suffer. Also keep in mind these draggers are still in business. You can see these nc boats off loading fluke in cape may in winter, fishing our grounds around the lobster claw and tea cup. This biomass is largely njs summer fluke. I have seen it first hand , while nj commercial boats couldn't fish because there quota was full. Yet out of state boats could still offload using their states quota. It's really screwed up.

SPOT ON.

UNLESS they stop NC commercial fisherman from catching huge amounts of fluke from all the states North of them . Every state should have an issue with them fishing here to Massachusetts to still continue to land in NC because of the large fish house business there

[reason162]

Draggers, yes. But also northward movement of the biomass, along with seabass and probably every other species due to climate change.

[kevin kovach]

Originally Posted by reason162

Draggers, yes. But also northward movement of the biomass, along with seabass and probably every other species due to climate change.

Definitely not. Here in east central Florida we are having a record amount of seabass showing up in the winter months. How climate does change explain a southern migration of seabass where they weren't before? And last week I caught a fluke, not a southern flounder but a true northern fluke.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by reason162

Draggers, yes. But also northward movement of the biomass, along with seabass and probably every other species due to climate change.

That movement is partially irrelevant , because those NC boats destroyed their biomass , and now fish as far as Massachusetts to continue their landings back in NC .

If they can’t catch those landings in their waters , they shouldn’t be still getting such a high weekly quota .

Even while it was lowered from 30k to 15k a week , when they fish our waters here they can still keep on average 5 times more a week than our commercial fleet here can

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by kevin kovach

That's actually incorrect. The flounder species in nc is 90 percent fluke. There are some southern flounder in the southern part of the state but majority are fluke.

My point was I thought the moratorium was only for southern flounder and not summer flounder or what we catch in our local waters. NC commercials have destroyed both fisheries and are doing their best to destroy the remaining summer flounder stock up here pounding them during the winter months. Batsavage is an a$&#@*e and NC could care less about the health of any fishery as opposed to how much money is being brought into the state through commercial operations.