Female Fluke

[Billfish715]

Everyone of our crew has a job to do when we get the boat back to the dock. Mine is to fillet our catch. This year, I've noticed more and more female fluke on the table. The roe sacs are very visible when the fish are eviscerated. What does this tell me? It indicates that nearly 90% of the "keeper" fluke are females and filled with eggs. It also seems to indicate that we are making a severe dent in the reproductivity of the summer flounder. Given the fact that most of the "legal" fluke are females, what else can it indicate? My point is that we are killing more and more female fluke at a time when the scientists tell us that the stock is being depleted! How can the scientists expect a stock to recover when they are directing us to keep the mostly larger breeders? Is anyone else finding the same thing? Since there is no evident physical feature to distinguish a male from a female fluke, there is no way to know the sex of a fish until it is being filleted. If, indeed, most of the bigger fish are females (an observed assumption), the lowering of the legal size limits would take some of the pressure off the larger breeding stock. Does that make sense? It does to me but I'm not a scientist!