Fluke just curious

[hammer4reel]

Tom Im aware of the article you posted.
Did you take note that it was a boat who purchased a quota of 30000 pounds for 75 grand from the same people saying the fluke stocks are doing bad.

was a commercial guy here that told me anyone buying those permits was probably not obeying the rules, as they were not going to pay 2.50 a pound to make 3.50 a pound.

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

Tom Im aware of the article you posted.
Did you take note that it was a boat who purchased a quota of 30000 pounds for 75 grand from the same people saying the fluke stocks are doing bad.

was a commercial guy here that told me anyone buying those permits was probably not obeying the rules, as they were not going to pay 2.50 a pound to make 3.50 a pound.

Did I take note.....no but at the same time why is that relevant? Why it happens as opposed to the fact that it did and does happen I'd bet on a very large scale is what does matter. Seafood consumption in this country / world is skyrocketing. The supply is coming from somewhere and it's not recreational anglers or in the case of fluke and flounder not from increased imports. This is a purely domestic food supply hitting the markets. Look at the commercial harvest numbers posted on an earlier thread from the 80's through current. Does anyone honestly believe more fish were brought to market back in the 80's then today in the health crazed world we live in. Kings, Whole Food and Costco probably sell more fish today by themselves than the entire market did back in the 80's! It is off the charts, pressuring every fishery and again while I agree recreational pressure contributes to the problem it is NOT the primary problem threatening fluke and every other fishery in the ocean with a market presence.

Enough said since we're beating a dead horse and it's obvious our perspectives regarding the underlying cause are relatively different. Regardless of opinions, the unfortunate result is a pretty bleak looking future for all of us.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Did I take note.....no but at the same time why is that relevant? Why it happens as opposed to the fact that it did and does happen I'd bet on a very large scale is what does matter. Seafood consumption in this country / world is skyrocketing. The supply is coming from somewhere and it's not recreational anglers or in the case of fluke and flounder not from increased imports. This is a purely domestic food supply hitting the markets. Look at the commercial harvest numbers posted on an earlier thread from the 80's through current. Does anyone honestly believe more fish were brought to market back in the 80's then today in the health crazed world we live in. Kings, Whole Food and Costco probably sell more fish today by themselves than the entire market did back in the 80's! It is off the charts, pressuring every fishery and again while I agree recreational pressure contributes to the problem it is NOT the primary problem threatening fluke and every other fishery in the ocean with a market presence.

Enough said since we're beating a dead horse and it's obvious our perspectives regarding the underlying cause are relatively different. Regardless of opinions, the unfortunate result is a pretty bleak looking future for all of us.

the reason its relevant is the guy who poached all these fish paid to fish for 30000 pounds of research set aside fish, in where he paid the the same Government agency 75 thousand bucks to fish for something they claim the stocks are low on.
It allowed him to fish outside of the normal fluke season without the same enforcement the commercial guys go through here in NJ.
as once he paid the fee, he could fish when ever he wanted. Good thing that came out of this bust is they did away with selling that quota. as it opened a giant door for illegal harvest .

And the comment about 7000 pounds being thrown away to keep 250 pounds was a blown out of porpotion statement.
These guys do 4 -5 tows to catch what was 500 pounds.
They arent catching thousands of pounds and throwing them back dead.
They tow till they meet their daily quota, and then hit those same spots the next day.

sure there will always be guys who try and skirt the system. just as their are guys among us who do the same thing daily.

hopefully they all get caught and they make the fines steep enough to make others think twice

http://www.fishingnj.org/netusa3.htm

Let the facts speak for themselves. Look at the chart and it's an easy correlation to make. Commercial catch basically increased 300% in the 80's over the 60's and 70's and the fishery can't sustain it which is why the numbers dropped since. Keep in mind again these numbers are reported catches, who knows what was actually caught and how much dead discard was thrown over board in the process which doesn't contribute to the numbers reported. That number is HUGE. Look at the below attached link if you question that fact.

hammer4reel quote: "sure there will always be guys who try and skirt the system. just as their are guys among us who do the same thing daily." Dan how many recreational guys do you know who have skirted the system by 290,000 lbs. or 89,000 lbs recently. Do you want everyone to believe for every trip where the commercials are allowed 200, 250 or 500 lbs of fluke they stop dragging when they hit those numbers! Are you implying culling doesn't happen to bring higher priced fish back to the docks? I've known enough guys who worked commercial boats over the years and have heard what happens at sea. There's no enforcement. I understand it's there livelihood and don't blame someone for trying to make ends meet but it cant be at the detriment of the entire fishery.

You want everyone to believe these are isolated cases, they're not. It's a systemic problem in how the resource is being managed from top to bottom but the biggest problem is indiscriminate netting and the amount of tonnage commercial guys are retaining and throwing back dead.

Do yourself a favor and replay the video I posted. Has to be 40 or 50 large fluke (probably all females based on what we know) tossed over board. Think that happened just one day? How many consecutive days did the same thing play out if their daily allotment was only 250 lbs, soon to be 200 lbs from the guys comments. You think they were the only commercial boat working that area? How many other draggers did exactly the same thing? That's what happens at sea and it's without enforcement, without conscience and it's completely out of control.

Read the article in the attached link which was written late last year. Provides good insight into the nature and extent of the problem.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...906-story.html

A few excerpts worth pointing out:
Once a commercial fishing boat hits its quota limit, which can be as little as 20 pounds a day for species like fluke (also known as summer flounder), any more of that fish brought aboard has to be thrown back.
"We're catching 200, 300 pounds an hour sometimes," Guzzo said. "It's a very wasteful way to fish."
Simpson estimated that "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds, of fish are being thrown back dead … It makes no sense."

One Connecticut commercial fisherman, who asked not to be identified because he was afraid of the reaction of federal officials, said he was fishing for scup last winter when he found his nets overflowing with black sea bass that he had to discard because of the quota regulations. "In the course of a day, I threw 20,000 pounds of black sea bass overboard," he said

In New England, according to a report by the nonprofit organization Oceana, tens of millions of dollars worth of sea scallops, flounder and other fish are being discarded each year as "bycatch" by commercial fishing operations. One reason the price of Sea Scallops has risen because it's another resource being exploited and demand is outpacing supply because supply is being decimated!

Oceana recently filed a lawsuit against the federal government to force reform of its system for monitoring and controlling the practice of discarding millions of dead fish. The lawsuit charges the federal government with a "continued failure to create a method for monitoring the amount of wasted catch in New England and Mid-Atlantic fisheries. The estimate that 80 percent of the fish thrown back in the water die comes from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Kirby Rootes-Murdy, a fisheries management coordinator with the commission, said the death rate for fish that recreational anglers return to the water is about 8 percent.

You can close your eyes to the facts or just blame NOAA / NMFS that their numbers are inaccurate but I don't know how anyone who bothers to look at published numbers and countless articles can believe the problem we're having other than how the quota's are being allocated and the overall political landscape in Washington and among the Atlantic Coast States is anything other than another resource being pushed to the brink of collapse by the commercial fishing industry.