NJ 2017 Fluke Regulations

Originally Posted by Reel Class

And don't fool yourselves - if you're going to resort to piracy and be a blatant rule breaker, the law enforcement side will step up their game and employ more officers to enforce the law. I've seen state police and even local police get involved in conservation and F&G violations - and the coast guard is always available to get involved and have F&G tag along.

Piracy and rule breaking is the only choice recreational guys have anymore to justify the sport. If you believe law enforcement will step up their efforts than why do you suggest they currently turn a blind eye to the bucket brigade on every jetty along the coast to guys that keep every short fluke, striper or blackfish with no oversight whatsoever.

Years ago there were NO restrictions on fluke, NO size or creel limits. Pretty sure that was the case in the 70's. Don't remember what year they imposed limits but when they did I believe the fluke limits were 12 inches and 10 fish! There obviously were less recreational boats fishing back in the day but there were probably more party boats, and every one was railed on weekends. With the higher creel limits or no creel limits, I'd bet there were more fish taken by less anglers when it came to winter and summer flounder. Fish were abundant EVERY year.

What changed? There was never the commercial fleet we have today. The average person could actually afford fish at the market. It wasn't !$@~*% $50 a pound for a fillet! There was A&P, Acme and Shop Rite that had fish markets with very reasonable prices. Now you have Kings, Whole Foods and all these specialty retail stores that charge absolutely insane prices for fish we release every day! The commercial fleet has exploded and our resource has imploded and to add insult to injury proportionately recreational guys have a more stringent set of rules to operate under than the guys causing the problem. Anyone not seeing that has their head up their ass. And how much illegal catch do you think hits the docks every day, that number has to be ENORMOUS.

Case in point, what lead to the collapse of the striper fishery in the 70's / 80's. They were decimated by commercial netters along the coast in particular in Virginia and North Carolina. States whose economy in part depended on the ocean wiped them out with indiscriminate netting. Fish of all sizes were taken, breeders and shorts as the body of fish migrated along the coast. I have to find the video from either Virginia or North Carolina I believe years ago with a pick up truck hauling a purse seine along the beach and dragging thousands of bass on shore. You'll throw up watching this video. Open up bass fishing to commercial again and see how long the fishery takes to collapse, less than a few years would be my guess. What destroyed the weakfish population, purse seiners along the coast and netters in Delaware Bay. What killed the whiting and ling fishery in the 80's and 90's, small mesh netters which killed and culled everything. A fishery I thought would never be effected by commercial pressure black fish. That was until they figured out a technique to trawl over rocks (roller trawling) and the Asian restaurant market put a premium price on live black fish. Try navigating the western edge of the Mud Hole at certain times of year, there's so many fish pot markers it's like running an obstacle course. Any fishery with a sustainable market is being exploited and the resource is being taken away from the recreational angler.

Recreational anglers unfortunately have no strong organized lobbyists to push through legislation representing our interests. Plain and simple. We're the classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Every year in recent memory we bitch and moan about regulations and every year we get a smaller piece of the pie. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We've been in this cycle for 30 years. From no daily limits and no creel sizes to possibly two fish at 19 inches while 14 inch fish are being sold at market for $16.99 a pound.

We're not in the process of losing our sport, we've lost it to ^&%$#$% politicians who are lining their own pockets and a powerful retail industry with lobbying clout we can only hope for. How much tonnage of flounder and fluke go to market every year. That number has to be staggering and these are the fish we're being asked to throw back. Flounder fishing has for all practical purposes been closed now for what 7-9 years. Where is the rebound in that stock. It's at Kings, Whole Food and all the new up and coming yuppy retail stores who are making millions of dollars on a resource taken from us.

So Captain Allen, do I advocate piracy and ignoring regulations no I don't. I've adhered to them like most of us for all these years. BUT our sport and your livelihood is being taken away and personally as I've said before until the regulations address both the real cause of the problem and more so govern everyone equally I'm going with self regulation. As others have suggested on this site, the bigger picture is this is all headed towards pay per catch legislation and salt water licenses. The ocean's resources don't belong to Washington, Albany or Trenton and while I believe there needs to be management and oversight, until it's managed with everyone's interest considered I won't recognize it. Developing a plan that addresses the real problem and provides hope for the future would be a good start. It's the equivalent of a company that isn't doing well and has one lay off after another. They address the problem by cutting cost and firing long term employees. Too many times they don't address what's causing the problem on the revenue line. Formula for a slow death. Recreational anglers are unfortunately the long term employee! We're in a slow death spiral and if you follow the trend line how long does everyone think 2 or 3 fish at 19 or 20 inches will last before morphing into, the same as winter flounder did, a moratorium on the fishery. If you think that's not possible my guess would be it's right around the corner!

Check out the below link and tell me if it doesn't identify the cause of the problem. And keep in mind these are JUST reported results, wouldn't be surprised between discard at sea and black market the numbers are double what's reported. And yet the powers to be continue penalizing recreational anglers for their exploitation of a public resource!

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

[Ttmako]

This is long but please read.
For years, recreational fishermen have willingly participated in fisheries management, abiding by increasing regulatory measures. These have included lower bag limits as well as higher minimum size requirements. We have done this because we have been led to believe stocks will improve and a return to reasonable allowable catches will resume. This is supported by testimony given Monday by both the Coast guard as well as an enforcement officer. Specifically, the coast guard increased fisheries boarding’s and the violation rate dropped to 1.3% from 5.9% a year earlier. (tab 5).
I attended the council meeting in Baltimore and was appalled by what I heard the council mention. The council admitted they have been regulating this fishery for 24 years and other than irate fisherman, has nothing to show for it. The current management measures assume better data by 2022. So in 24 years they have not been able to put forth a viable, accurate, agreeable measurement of the size of the fluke fishery nor have they been able to accurately measure the demand recreational fisherman put upon that fishery. So to put that timespan into context, over the previous 24 years, Google was invented, smartphones have flourished, and we have gone to war with Iraq, twice. The world trade center was destroyed and a new freedom tower has been built. I’m not clear why the council is unable to produce an accurate number of fish and a better estimate of the number of fisherman. It should not be anywhere near as complicated as any the items previously mentioned.
The proposal to further decrease the recreational quota by 40% is untenable and will have serious unintended consequences, including losing the support of the constituents they serve.
Every year the quota is reduced and recreational fishermen are squeezed with lower limits and higher minimum sizes. These reductions are all based on data that you willingly and arrogantly admit is flawed. The recreational community passionately believes the science is completely flawed. Simply because, they as participants, do not see or experience what you are telling them. If there was some believable science or data to substantiate and prove the stocks were indeed at risk, fisherman would help. However, there is no tangible evidence to show the stock is in danger. The issue from my perspective is not the quantity of fluke, it is the size of the fluke we are catching. This summer most days we caught dozens of 16-17.99999” fluke that we had to throw back. How many of these perfectly edible viable fish died because some model tells me I had to throw it back, even gut hooked fish. I’m sorry but that is not conservation.
The unintended consequence first and foremost will lead to devastating losses in the already struggling for hire fleet, bait and tackle shops, marinas, etc. Secondly, some recreational participants will no longer support these unsubstantiated quota reductions. This final straw will provide them motivation to just ignore the rules and keep whatever they want.
It is imperative for the recreational community and the fisheries regulators get on the same page. To do that, the following framework is proposed:

1. Establish parity with commercial size limits. It is simply not equitable that commercial fishermen can keep 14" fluke and those size limit never change. Move the recreational limit to 14", allowing people to keep a limit of fluke. Conversely, increase the commercial size limit so there is a minimum size for both constituents. Again, the fluke stock is abundant and the current bag limit (5 fish) is reasonable. However, the increasing size limit is the problem.
2. Institute a slot limit. Current regulations are forcing fisherman to harvest the bigger female breeding stock, which negatively impacts the spawning biomass. This is totally counterproductive to preserving the stock and what we are trying to accomplish. I urge you to incorporate this important and relevant information to your models. In addition to a slot limit gut hooked fish should be kept and counted against the limit. There is no reason to throw a 17” gut hooked fish over the side.
3. Improve science and data collection. For many years NOAA has been asked to update the stock assessment and data collection techniques used to survey anglers. Both the assessment and survey data are inadequate and thus are providing misleading outputs to your model. As the saying goes, garbage in garbage out.
Before making such drastic reductions, it is imperative the stock assessment be updated as soon as possible to get a better understanding of the benchmark and measure the impact of regulatory measures. Party boat captains are simply the best source to measure the health of the stock. Utilize the VTR that they are required to complete. Its widely acknowledged the survey data (MRFFS and MRIP) is inaccurate. My guess is 75% of the fluke captured are caught by the for-hire fleet. NOAA has substantial resources and should have adequate funding to leverage technology to make more accurate assumptions about the biomass as well as angler effort.
4. Measure the effects of the recent quota reductions. Regulations need time to work. Changing the bag, size limits and season every year is a disservice as we are not able to see the benefit of the increased regulations. Let's see what happens with the status quo until the science improves.
5. The way we fluke fish has changed. Many anglers are changing the way they fish which may have implications on the fishery. Today more anglers are using bucktails, large teaser hooks and artificial baits to target fluke. Utilizing this methodology cuts down on gut hooked fish. It still happens, but not where near the extent of dragging bait on Kahle hooks. This needs to be taken in to account in surveys and models.
I implore the fisheries council and NOAA to not reduce the recreational quota on fluke. Implementing such a drastic reduction based on flawed science will disenfranchise the entire recreational fishing community and they will lose whatever support remains. The result is people will simply keep what they want and the biomass will certainly suffer.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by Ttmako

This is long but please read.
For years, recreational fishermen have willingly participated in fisheries management, abiding by increasing regulatory measures. These have included lower bag limits as well as higher minimum size requirements. We have done this because we have been led to believe stocks will improve and a return to reasonable allowable catches will resume. This is supported by testimony given Monday by both the Coast guard as well as an enforcement officer. Specifically, the coast guard increased fisheries boarding’s and the violation rate dropped to 1.3% from 5.9% a year earlier. (tab 5).
I attended the council meeting in Baltimore and was appalled by what I heard the council mention. The council admitted they have been regulating this fishery for 24 years and other than irate fisherman, has nothing to show for it. The current management measures assume better data by 2022. So in 24 years they have not been able to put forth a viable, accurate, agreeable measurement of the size of the fluke fishery nor have they been able to accurately measure the demand recreational fisherman put upon that fishery. So to put that timespan into context, over the previous 24 years, Google was invented, smartphones have flourished, and we have gone to war with Iraq, twice. The world trade center was destroyed and a new freedom tower has been built. I’m not clear why the council is unable to produce an accurate number of fish and a better estimate of the number of fisherman. It should not be anywhere near as complicated as any the items previously mentioned.
The proposal to further decrease the recreational quota by 40% is untenable and will have serious unintended consequences, including losing the support of the constituents they serve.
Every year the quota is reduced and recreational fishermen are squeezed with lower limits and higher minimum sizes. These reductions are all based on data that you willingly and arrogantly admit is flawed. The recreational community passionately believes the science is completely flawed. Simply because, they as participants, do not see or experience what you are telling them. If there was some believable science or data to substantiate and prove the stocks were indeed at risk, fisherman would help. However, there is no tangible evidence to show the stock is in danger. The issue from my perspective is not the quantity of fluke, it is the size of the fluke we are catching. This summer most days we caught dozens of 16-17.99999” fluke that we had to throw back. How many of these perfectly edible viable fish died because some model tells me I had to throw it back, even gut hooked fish. I’m sorry but that is not conservation.
The unintended consequence first and foremost will lead to devastating losses in the already struggling for hire fleet, bait and tackle shops, marinas, etc. Secondly, some recreational participants will no longer support these unsubstantiated quota reductions. This final straw will provide them motivation to just ignore the rules and keep whatever they want.
It is imperative for the recreational community and the fisheries regulators get on the same page. To do that, the following framework is proposed:

1. Establish parity with commercial size limits. It is simply not equitable that commercial fishermen can keep 14" fluke and those size limit never change. Move the recreational limit to 14", allowing people to keep a limit of fluke. Conversely, increase the commercial size limit so there is a minimum size for both constituents. Again, the fluke stock is abundant and the current bag limit (5 fish) is reasonable. However, the increasing size limit is the problem.
2. Institute a slot limit. Current regulations are forcing fisherman to harvest the bigger female breeding stock, which negatively impacts the spawning biomass. This is totally counterproductive to preserving the stock and what we are trying to accomplish. I urge you to incorporate this important and relevant information to your models. In addition to a slot limit gut hooked fish should be kept and counted against the limit. There is no reason to throw a 17” gut hooked fish over the side.
3. Improve science and data collection. For many years NOAA has been asked to update the stock assessment and data collection techniques used to survey anglers. Both the assessment and survey data are inadequate and thus are providing misleading outputs to your model. As the saying goes, garbage in garbage out.
Before making such drastic reductions, it is imperative the stock assessment be updated as soon as possible to get a better understanding of the benchmark and measure the impact of regulatory measures. Party boat captains are simply the best source to measure the health of the stock. Utilize the VTR that they are required to complete. Its widely acknowledged the survey data (MRFFS and MRIP) is inaccurate. My guess is 75% of the fluke captured are caught by the for-hire fleet. NOAA has substantial resources and should have adequate funding to leverage technology to make more accurate assumptions about the biomass as well as angler effort.
4. Measure the effects of the recent quota reductions. Regulations need time to work. Changing the bag, size limits and season every year is a disservice as we are not able to see the benefit of the increased regulations. Let's see what happens with the status quo until the science improves.
5. The way we fluke fish has changed. Many anglers are changing the way they fish which may have implications on the fishery. Today more anglers are using bucktails, large teaser hooks and artificial baits to target fluke. Utilizing this methodology cuts down on gut hooked fish. It still happens, but not where near the extent of dragging bait on Kahle hooks. This needs to be taken in to account in surveys and models.
I implore the fisheries council and NOAA to not reduce the recreational quota on fluke. Implementing such a drastic reduction based on flawed science will disenfranchise the entire recreational fishing community and they will lose whatever support remains. The result is people will simply keep what they want and the biomass will certainly suffer.

Agreed!!

[frugalfisherman]

Google the meaning of " platitude ".

[Reel Class]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Piracy and rule breaking is the only choice recreational guys have anymore to justify the sport. If you believe law enforcement will step up their efforts than why do you suggest they currently turn a blind eye to the bucket brigade on every jetty along the coast to guys that keep every short fluke, striper or blackfish with no oversight whatsoever.

Years ago there were NO restrictions on fluke, NO size or creel limits. Pretty sure that was the case in the 70's. Don't remember what year they imposed limits but when they did I believe the fluke limits were 12 inches and 10 fish! There obviously were less recreational boats fishing back in the day but there were probably more party boats, and every one was railed on weekends. With the higher creel limits or no creel limits, I'd bet there were more fish taken by less anglers when it came to winter and summer flounder. Fish were abundant EVERY year.

What changed? There was never the commercial fleet we have today. The average person could actually afford fish at the market. It wasn't !$@~*% $50 a pound for a fillet! There was A&P, Acme and Shop Rite that had fish markets with very reasonable prices. Now you have Kings, Whole Foods and all these specialty retail stores that charge absolutely insane prices for fish we release every day! The commercial fleet has exploded and our resource has imploded and to add insult to injury proportionately recreational guys have a more stringent set of rules to operate under than the guys causing the problem. Anyone not seeing that has their head up their ass. And how much illegal catch do you think hits the docks every day, that number has to be ENORMOUS.

Case in point, what lead to the collapse of the striper fishery in the 70's / 80's. They were decimated by commercial netters along the coast in particular in Virginia and North Carolina. States whose economy in part depended on the ocean wiped them out with indiscriminate netting. Fish of all sizes were taken, breeders and shorts as the body of fish migrated along the coast. I have to find the video from either Virginia or North Carolina I believe years ago with a pick up truck hauling a purse seine along the beach and dragging thousands of bass on shore. You'll throw up watching this video. Open up bass fishing to commercial again and see how long the fishery takes to collapse, less than a few years would be my guess. What destroyed the weakfish population, purse seiners along the coast and netters in Delaware Bay. What killed the whiting and ling fishery in the 80's and 90's, small mesh netters which killed and culled everything. A fishery I thought would never be effected by commercial pressure black fish. That was until they figured out a technique to trawl over rocks (roller trawling) and the Asian restaurant market put a premium price on live black fish. Try navigating the western edge of the Mud Hole at certain times of year, there's so many fish pot markers it's like running an obstacle course. Any fishery with a sustainable market is being exploited and the resource is being taken away from the recreational angler.

Recreational anglers unfortunately have no strong organized lobbyists to push through legislation representing our interests. Plain and simple. We're the classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Every year in recent memory we bitch and moan about regulations and every year we get a smaller piece of the pie. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We've been in this cycle for 30 years. From no daily limits and no creel sizes to possibly two fish at 19 inches while 14 inch fish are being sold at market for $16.99 a pound.

We're not in the process of losing our sport, we've lost it to ^&%$#$% politicians who are lining their own pockets and a powerful retail industry with lobbying clout we can only hope for. How much tonnage of flounder and fluke go to market every year. That number has to be staggering and these are the fish we're being asked to throw back. Flounder fishing has for all practical purposes been closed now for what 7-9 years. Where is the rebound in that stock. It's at Kings, Whole Food and all the new up and coming yuppy retail stores who are making millions of dollars on a resource taken from us.

So Captain Allen, do I advocate piracy and ignoring regulations no I don't. I've adhered to them like most of us for all these years. BUT our sport and your livelihood is being taken away and personally as I've said before until the regulations address both the real cause of the problem and more so govern everyone equally I'm going with self regulation. As others have suggested on this site, the bigger picture is this is all headed towards pay per catch legislation and salt water licenses. The ocean's resources don't belong to Washington, Albany or Trenton and while I believe there needs to be management and oversight, until it's managed with everyone's interest considered I won't recognize it. Developing a plan that addresses the real problem and provides hope for the future would be a good start. It's the equivalent of a company that isn't doing well and has one lay off after another. They address the problem by cutting cost and firing long term employees. Too many times they don't address what's causing the problem on the revenue line. Formula for a slow death. Recreational anglers are unfortunately the long term employee! We're in a slow death spiral and if you follow the trend line how long does everyone think 2 or 3 fish at 19 or 20 inches will last before morphing into, the same as winter flounder did, a moratorium on the fishery. If you think that's not possible my guess would be it's right around the corner!

Check out the below link and tell me if it doesn't identify the cause of the problem. And keep in mind these are JUST reported results, wouldn't be surprised between discard at sea and black market the numbers are double what's reported. And yet the powers to be continue penalizing recreational anglers for their exploitation of a public resource!

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

Interesting response.

Gonna respond by paragraph.

Paragraph #1) If you believe this - you should check out how some of the six pack boats were doing in the month of October while doing catch/release blackfishing. Killing stuff isn't the only reason people fish - FYI.

Paragraph #2) The 13" minimum size limit was put in place in the early 80's, actually the very early 80's and there was no bag limit in place. There was uproar. I remember this well because I was a young kid, just getting into fishing, and my uncle was a regular on the NK3 and Shamrock - we would go with him - we would hear the old timers bitching. You are right there were less recreational boats around, but there were more shorebound anglers WITH MORE ACCESS and they caught/kept what they wanted. And you're right fish were more abundant every year - especially winter flounder. I don't ever remember seeing F&G around anywhere in my youth; nor did I remember seeing the USCG and State Police around as much as they are today.

Paragraph #3) Agreed. But when people wanted fish, and they had the time, they went fishing. People just didn't catch fish for food - they used them for other purposes. Case in point - we knew a guy that used to flounder fish in Will's Hole at the base of the 35 bridge in PPB (this is well before Kingsbridge Marina was there). The guy used to fish 2 tides, and fill his bucket with postage stamp sized flounder and bigger ones - what did he do with them? Fertilizer for his garden.

Paragraph #4) I agree too. But don't forget about the Russians and the processing ships. They destroyed the whiting fishery also. And also don't forget about the gillnetters that destroyed the weakish population.

The rest? I agree wholeheartedly.

The bottom line is MORE GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT. With a new administration in place, that seems to have a differing agenda, maybe we can make some headway?