Fluke season 2025 review so far.

[jd442]

Curious how your fluke season has been going so far. We normally fish on a friends boat out of Atlantic Highlands. Our usual fluking spots are ocean side the snake, dumping grounds, shrewsbury rocks etc. I would have to say this has been our toughest season to date. Going out for the entire day we are lucky to get a few keepers for the entire boat (4 to 5 guys). We are catching a lot of shorts but the keepers have been real hard to come by. Boats fishing near us don't seem to be pulling up many keepers from what we can see. Not sure if people further south are doing any better. Curious if you guys fishing this area are experiencing the same.

[jd442]

Sorry can you move this thread from classifieds to the saltwater page.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Moved

[Gerry Zagorski]

And BTW no shortage of Fluke around but you have to sort though some shorts to get a keeper... This last weekend tournament won by an 11 pound fluke in the Sandy Hook area and lots of reports of from others over their limit and releasing fish but these are sharpies who are dialed in..

[FISHGERE]

Curious how your fluke season has been going so far. We normally fish on a friends boat out of Atlantic Highlands. Our usual fluking spots are ocean side the snake, dumping grounds, shrewsbury rocks etc. I would have to say this has been our toughest season to date. Going out for the entire day we are lucky to get a few keepers for the entire boat (4 to 5 guys). We are catching a lot of shorts but the keepers have been real hard to come by. Boats fishing near us don't seem to be pulling up many keepers from what we can see. Not sure if people further south are doing any better. Curious if you guys fishing this area are experiencing the same.. Same just like you said keepers are here and there to many shorts that escaped the commercial boats

[Pauls1976]

No shortage of fish on my trips, just a lack of size. Fished both river and ocean. Seems I have been a day late or out on an off day from what others tell me.

[Detour66]

When the wind and tide conditions are good. I caught. When you need lots of lead to hold not so good! Lot's of shorts. My best day keeper wise was a 24" and a 21". I hope it the fluking gets much better in August as it normally does. We shall see! Tight lines!

[wyldbillnj]

At best it's been an inconsistent season at best. There really haven't been any patterns I could find...as to where fish are on a daily basis. Past years you could find some consistency as to where the fish are nearby this year hasn't been the case especially for keepers.

Im going to keep plugging away putting some meat in the freezer and enjoy the boat time.

[Broad Bill]

Recreational anglers, including party, charter and recs, who are at the top of their game, catch multiple limits daily. Everyone else is for the most part struggling for a keeper or two per trip. Why, the regulations have given commercials exclusive rights to the harvest of 18" and in certain states like NY 19 - 19.5" fish and shorter. They kill massive amounts of smaller fish in the process of harvesting the larger more valuable fish. This is how the regulations have been set and the fishery managed since 2000.

Remember last year the posts about all those close shorts and how that boded well for the future, well what happened. They were either harvested offshore if their market value spiked or killed in the process of harvesting the jumbos bringing twice the ex-vessel value. What we're all experiencing this year will be what we experience every year or worse unless regulations which are absolutely asinine are changed. And we all know the answer to that statement, they're not about to be because economics rule over recreational enjoyment. Recreational angling contributes multiple billions in spend to the economy, anyone believe the Secretary of Commerce or NMFS will change something that in their opinion isn't broken regarding spending and commercial revenue generation which is their primary if not only focus.

As I've said, they should close the fishery to commercial during the spawn but won't because it's the easiest time of the year for commercials to hammer stocks, highly concentrated and not too far offshore before they reach their off shore wintering grounds. The focus of management and principles they base their decisions on are as ass backwards as it gets with the summer flounder stock.