NOAA is both right and wrong about Fluke

Originally Posted by gnuisance

I think climate change is a factor as well. I hesitate to bring that up here because this crowd doesn't want to hear about it and the entire thing devolves into a climate change debate.

What I really want to talk about is why aren't the fluke here this year and what is the solution for sustainable summer flounder fishing moving forward? Everyone blames the commercial by catch situation but nothing ever changes. Do these guys have any accountability? How can we start the process of making sure they have some?

Read my post. If the powers to be can address the significant market price fluctuations between smaller and larger fluke, hygrading (dead discard) is eliminated immediately. Simultaneously there should be a complete fishery closure during the primary spawn September thru November. Give every breeder another year to drop eggs as opposed to having commercials pound them on their off shore migration without understanding the impact this has on the entire spawn process. Like I said in my earlier post, check out the off loads at the Coop if you want a first hand look at what's going on, you'll be shocked and pissed when you see the size fsih being harvested. What you won't see are all the fish we released throughout the season tossed back dead in the process of retaining the larger more value breeders. The fishery is being destroyed and the targeting of larger fluke by commercials along with the associated discard that process generates coupled with 15 - 20 years of mismanagement by NMFS with size limit increases is 95% of the reason this fishery is failing. Don't have to look anywhere else.