Terrible fluke season

[Jigman13]

Originally Posted by Capt. Frank

I agree.

This year has been BETTER than the last five for me and what I have seen in the Sandy Hook area. Not sure about elsewhere.

But spots do move

I was gonna say, sounds like some guys just have to try different spots. I've had a great season so far in the back bay.

[Rocky]

A friend sent me this and I think it is more good info to ponder about our fluke fishery.
I'd like it to say:

For those who think there's no correlation to attacking the breeding stock and the health of this fishery, please give the following some thought. In fresh water, many species are closed to fishing or catch and release only like walleye during their spawn. Imagine if smallmouth and largemouth bass were allowed to be taken while on their beds, how long do you think those fisheries would last before collapsing?. They'd collapse without significant stocking programs in a matter of years. Saltwater unfortunately doesn't have stocking programs and sustainability depends 100% on natural reproduction. Look at the results of this week's Elk's Club tournament in the following link.

https://www.pointpleasantelks.org/fluke.html

7.5 lbs wins and 5.5 took last place money in seventh. Now go back and look at prior year results before size minimums recreationally got completely out of control and commercial harvest focused exclusively on larger breeders. There's quite a few years where the 7th place fish is bigger than this year's winner. A decade ago, it was unusual for a winning fish in any tournament to be under the DD mark. Every year tournament winners, not just the Elk's, are getting smaller and smaller. The larger females which produce 10 times more eggs are being removed from the stock and the practice of targeting breeders during the spawn by commercial operators is the equivalent of allowing recreational anglers to retain the large breeders during their spawn in freshwater fisheries which most states disallow. 60 million less mature breeders in a short seven year period of time in the summer flounder stock and an 80% decrease in the number of surviving recruits since breeders were targeted is catastrophic to put it mildly. This is not about how many fish are being retained, for the most part, it's about the age classes being targeted and retained and the carnage caused to the younger age classes in the process of harvesting the older ones. End of story. Change the regulations to address the problems or the regulations will continue and accelerate those problems challenging the future of this stock. .

[FishingSinceIWasThree]

Talk about TERRIBLE regulations....3 snappers? Can't even feed your cat with that.

[dales529]

PP Elks history from 2006 to 2022:
Mix bag from DD to 7.5lbs for winners. Only 5 years in the last 16 did a DD win and regs have sucked throughout.
https://www.pointpleasantelks.org/fluke.html

Some big fish across the board, some smaller fish top to bottom, so tell me what that means?
Conditions conditions conditions!

Dont get me wrong here as I agree that targeting breeders is NOT the way to go but when you look at the history of this tourney you needed a DD or you could win with a 7.5.