[CaptTB]

Originally Posted by Kensdock

The 1.4 million NJ angler estimate was from a federal government survey that I read . I did not see the`1.2 million estimate that Tony quoted.

And apparently you decided to never look anything else up again. As I said, the number you quote was from one year of MRFSS estimates, specifically the year 2007. Go to the MRFSS website and look it up for yourself, it is public information.

10% of anglers catching 100 keeper flounder during the 2009 season is a conservative estimate from my experience and research.

And exactly what research did you do to come up with that estimate?

Using this information how many pounds of flounder did 10% of NJ anglers catch?

Putting aside for the moment that your estimate flies in the face of every piece of data ever collected as relates to CPUE (that's Catch Per Unit Effort) for Fluke fishing on the eastern seaboard, if 10% of the 1.4 million anglers you mention caught 250lbs. of Fluke in a single year, that would mean that 140,000 anglers in the state of NJ KEPT 35,000,000 (that's 35 MILLION) pounds of Fluke, (140,000*250) or nearly 1/4 the entire Fluke biomass in the ocean. If you take the federal gov't average of less than 2 keeper Fluke per person, per trip (it's somewhere around 95-97% of fluke anglers catch less than 2...I'll put the exact #'s up later, gotta get the stuff from my office) that would mean the AVERAGE angler makes nearly 60 fluke trips a year. 100 fish at less than 2 keepers per trip =50+ trips.

When you add in the throw back rate (around 9 to 1 according to gov't numbers) you can estimate that just in the state of NJ alone those 140,000 anglers would have made approx. 7 Million Fluke trips (140,000*50 trips each) catching roughly 125+ MILLION fish (9to1 throwback to keeper times 2 = 18 fish caught times 7,000,000 trips), or somewhere around the entire biomass currently estimated to exist in the entire ocean(125+million fish at only 1.5lbs. you get 187+million pounds, or more than the current estimates of the total Fluke biomass in the Atlantic Ocean, and that's 1 full pound LESS than your average keeper weight you used)

So, according to your "experience and research" NJ catches and releases the entire biomass of Fluke in the entire ocean in a single year, plus we keep nearly 1 1/2 times the quota allocated to the entire coast, both commercial and recreational combined.(which this year is in the low 20 million pound range)

I can assure you of one thing it is good information!!

I'm sure you believe it is, and I have this really nice bridge for sale, dirt cheap!


Any questions?