Flounder

[duranautic al]

Take a cruise around the bayshore rivers,creeks and estuaries.More cormorats,osprys,eagles and other birds that would make an easy meal out of a flounder.Never mind the overabundance of the endangered dogfish,harbor seals and the biggest culprit... The Striped Bass...they suck them off the bottom like candy

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by duranautic al

Take a cruise around the bayshore rivers,creeks and estuaries.More cormorats,osprys,eagles and other birds that would make an easy meal out of a flounder.Never mind the overabundance of the endangered dogfish,harbor seals and the biggest culprit... The Striped Bass...they suck them off the bottom like candy

You know, never thought of that.. Stripers love small flounder.. Years and years ago, they were prime bait for few guys in the know.

.The resurgence of Stripers to an extent has coincided with the demise of flounder in the same waters... A possible factor?.. Probably, but as you stated, a proliferation of other predators that simply were not around 30-40 years ago as well....Doesn't look good for winter flounder short term, thats for certain.... bob

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

You know, never thought of that.. Stripers love small flounder.. Years and years ago, they were prime bait for few guys in the know.

.The resurgence of Stripers to an extent has coincided with the demise of flounder in the same waters... A possible factor?.. Probably, but as you stated, a proliferation of other predators that simply were not around 30-40 years ago as well....Doesn't look good for winter flounder short term, thats for certain.... bob

I think this has something to do with it... Years ago when Stripers weren't as plentiful we had a lot of Flounder around. The other thing I seem to remember each year was when the Stipers showed up the flounders left the area.

[Skolmann]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

The other thing I seem to remember each year was when the Stipers showed up the flounders left the area.

See, I recall that when the yellow eyed demon bluefish showed up is when the flounder made their mass exodus out of the bay. Then you’d get them at The Cedars for about 2 weeks before they were totally gone.

[Blind Archer]

First couple of blues caught in Cliffwood was always the end of the spring run of flounder. Can't say I blame them. One observation at the time of their demise was, nearly all of the Party boats from AT fished the rivers, Port Monmouth flats , the Cedars etc in the spring.. Then all of a sudden the marquis read " Jumbo Bay Flounder" and they were all over the west end collectively pulling hundereds of egg laden females a day. It was only 2 years later that the decline hastened.
My personal hotspot was destroyed when the Keyport harbor channel was dredged. The South flats were barren from then on.

I grew up fishing Sandy Hook, Shark River and the Manasquan River for winter flounder. Every year in the '70s early to mid '80s those bodies of water were absolutely paved with flounder ranging in sizes from small to jumbos. You could follow the schools as they came out of the mud to drop their eggs and start they're migration from the bays to the inlets or ocean and begin their offshore migration east. In the Atlantic Highlands, the start of the season was marked by the party boats fishing around the Quay, back bays areas and flats. Then you'd follow the schools as they started schooling up and moving out. Channels, areas around Earle, then it moved closer to the mussel beds at Flynn's Knoll and Roamers Shoals and as Skolman mentioned they poured into the ocean staging at the Cedars for a few weeks to feed up before their long journey offshore. You could catch all the jumbo flounder and big ling you wanted at the Cedars for a few weeks before the blue fish and stripers showed and the flounder immediately headed for Dodge. That was the ritual every year, year in year out, and it wouldn't be unusual to catch 40 or 50 flounder in a day's time from shore without using chum. Like the ling and whiting fishery, fast forward to the late 80's when the commercial fishery started targeting winter flounder after the summer flounder fishery crashed. All you need to do is look at catch levels in the 80's and 90's, larger species were targeted offshore, spawning stock was destroyed, recruitment went from 60 million new fish introduced into the stock every year to less than 5 million today and a biomass crashed. That fishery has been irreparably damaged and it's not coming back. We're staring down the barrel of a gun right now with the same thing happening to the summer flounder fishery and for those of you that don't think that's possible believe me nobody thought the winter flounder fishery could be destroyed in the 60's, 70's and early to mid 80's but it was. No one believed even more so the ling and whiting fishery that we had which was absolutely off the charts incredible could be destroyed and it was as well. Both of these fisheries were destroyed within a relatively short period of time. With the technology in place back then and even more so today, it only takes a few years to wipe out a stock and decades for it to recover, if it's even at all possible.

[Capt. Debbie]

This was what 1980's? You'd have to catch them on an industrial scale daily to do that.

The whiting disappeared up here too and so did the weakfish.

Migration patterns change. Whoever heard of large Drum in RB? Or the yearly visit and spotting of a huge Sturgeon that no one fishes for. But there's not 1000's of Sturgeon either.

Nature has a cycle.

Even crabbing up north in Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers stunk the last two seasons with smaller crabs all season long.

We can blame the Evil Commercial Empire as they are convenient scape goats on a Rec fisherman site. But that is very suspect too.

Originally Posted by Blind Archer

First couple of blues caught in Cliffwood was always the end of the spring run of flounder. Can't say I blame them. One observation at the time of their demise was, nearly all of the Party boats from AT fished the rivers, Port Monmouth flats , the Cedars etc in the spring.. Then all of a sudden the marquis read " Jumbo Bay Flounder" and they were all over the west end collectively pulling hundereds of egg laden females a day. It was only 2 years later that the decline hastened.
My personal hotspot was destroyed when the Keyport harbor channel was dredged. The South flats were barren from then on.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by Capt. Frank

This was what 1980's? You'd have to catch them on an industrial scale daily to do that.

The whiting disappeared up here too and so did the weakfish.

Migration patterns change. Whoever heard of large Drum in RB? Or the yearly visit and spotting of a huge Sturgeon that no one fishes for. But there's not 1000's of Sturgeon either.

Nature has a cycle.

Even crabbing up north in Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers stunk the last two seasons with smaller crabs all season long.

We can blame the Evil Commercial Empire as they are convenient scape goats on a Rec fisherman site. But that is very suspect too.

I'll agree with that when it comes to flounder.. However it was commercials that destroyed the Whiting/Mackerel/Weakfish, no doubt in my mind.. I still recall the pound nets in Raritan Bay killing untold numbers of spawning Weakfish every year, until they were pretty much gone...

Flounder had more issues than just commercial pressure, and yes, we recs took WAY too many back in the 80's... I too recall when the party boats abandoned the rivers back in the day, and I was right in the middle of them in shallow water in Union Beach where I lived at the time, not 1/4 off the beach in my 12 foot rowboat, everyone catching massive blackbacks, until they were gone too.. Once the rivers were not producing flounder it should have set off alarm bells.. It didn't.. They just went to where there were still fish to be caught... until there weren't... No it wasn't all commercial guys, we recs did plenty of damage too.. However, they are at least as complicit as we are for the bad situation we are in with flounder, and are certainly the main cause of the disappearance of other species... bob

[Capt Sal]

Originally Posted by Blind Archer

First couple of blues caught in Cliffwood was always the end of the spring run of flounder. Can't say I blame them. One observation at the time of their demise was, nearly all of the Party boats from AT fished the rivers, Port Monmouth flats , the Cedars etc in the spring.. Then all of a sudden the marquis read " Jumbo Bay Flounder" and they were all over the west end collectively pulling hundereds of egg laden females a day. It was only 2 years later that the decline hastened.
My personal hotspot was destroyed when the Keyport harbor channel was dredged. The South flats were barren from then on.

The Belford Pirates were dragging nets all over the bay. When they got caught they got a slap on the wrist. That is exterminating a flounder species . To blame it on hook and line fishing from PB boats is not true. Years ago when i chartered i got one month of flounder in before bass fishing. It paid for the slip and insurance. All the for hire boats got hurt by this and the decimation of our Whiting fishery. You can thank the Belford Pirates for that also.

[NoLimit]

What Captain Sal said - there is no way that recreational fishing ever decimated any fishery