Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

I think most recreational fishermen understand this, the "people" that need to start understanding this are those doing the " best science available" and suggesting regulations. I haven't had a chance to follow up but there was reports from the agencies that now some 18" + fluke are males and in larger numbers than previously thought, So it would also, to agree with your point that maybe smaller fish are females. Never understood why sex studies outside of the agencies are automatically rejected but they cant peer review their own as this is supposed to be about protecting a species. My guess is no sex studies are being done at the agency level.

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

15” as a three year old is supposed to be their first spawn .

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

99% of the fish I see filleted have a roe sack .and that’s everything from 17” to 30”
See very few male fish

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

Agreed.

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

How about this. Let’s just close the fishery down for a year or two commercial and recreational. We will all live without eating a flounder. That will give the idiots two years to figure their shit out and use their college degrees and maybe their brains to actually come up with a plan that works. The fishery is in the toilet as far as I’m concerned. If recreational guys cared about the fishery like they act like they do on here all they have to do is catch and release the fish and enjoy just fishing. But instead most that go saltwater fishing have to take their limit home. Just shut it down for a year or two commercial and recreational and the fishing will be great. Hopefully by then they figure out that they can’t keep taking these breeders. It’s all stupidity. I’ll sell my boat when it really hits the toilet and it’s getting there.

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

First of all what makes you believe that commercials would even consider to agree to a shut down and as I assume you are a private boater why would you ask recreational for hire boats to lose a year of pay for their families when its hard enough to make a living? Even if that were to happen there is no indication that the best available science would see better recruitment and we would never get quota back. CR would be acceptable to me but then they would adjust mortality even larger than the BS numbers now and again for hire boats would lose big time.
This is not the answer and why is it that some boats find the fluke consitently day after day if as you say they dont exist, They just dont exist where you are fishing!

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

X2
go to any fluke tournament all summer long .
All the boats are crushing fish .
.Fish are here just need to fish for them .


The amount of fluke caught daily in the rivers even in rental boats is very good .
Togfather just sounds like he is in the 90%.

..

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

Good dialogue. The below graph is based on data right from the stock assessment, best available science, the horses mouth and peer reviewed. Summer flounder attain sexual maturity between ages 2 and 3. Based on the Mean Length by Sex and Age charts, a 3 year old female summer flounder's mean length is 17.65 inches, a males is 15.42 inches. So waiting until a female reaches 18" might give that fish one to maybe two years of spawning. Almost all male age groups through age 7 have a mean length less than 18". Age 6 in the graph for males makes no sense, must be flawed data of some kind used in their models. Point is males are significantly smaller in this stock and as such are more susceptible to being victims of natural mortality and extensive collateral damage from commercial netting.

Key point to keep in mind. Right or wrong, science assigns a 25% natural mortality rate to every age class from sickness, predation (stripers, seals etc.). Meaning if an age class started with 1,000 new recruits, it loses 250 in the first year. In the second year, that age class presumably has shrunk to 750 and loses another 187 (25% of 750) or round it up to 200 in year two and has now lost almost 50% of it's class just to natural mortality. Now add discard mortality, especially commercial related which is an enormous number carrying an 80% mortality rate and add recreational mortality plus fishing mortality from commercials who can retain these sizes or throw them back dead while recreational anglers can't. If these percentages are close to reality, we're losing 60% - potentially 80% of every age class within two years before they spawn once or can be harvested legally by the recreational sector. And since males are smaller in size, we're proportionately losing a higher percentage of males from each class which to Hammer's point is why I believe almost all fish harvested recreationally are females. Most males die early in their life cycle, victims of natural mortality or collateral damage from commercial fishing operations. Very few males make it over 18". And if these younger age classes end up in commercial nets, they're going back dead because the prime size commercials harvest are in the 16" - 18" range for the restaurant market. The true reason recreational regulations start at over 18" giving the commercial sector exclusive harvest rights to those size fish.

This fishery flourished in the 90's and early 2000 because we were harvesting the exact opposite age classes we're harvesting today. Harvesting them before they were succumbing to natural mortality and discard mortality, and protecting the spawning stock which made it through. Today's regulations allow these fish to succumb to 25% natural mortality yearly for the first two years, losing ~50% of each classes population, we kill millions of the younger age groups pursuing the harvest of the older age groups and science wonders why the spawning stock declined substantially and why recruitment statistics are approaching historic lows. How many marine biologists should it take to figure that out? Makes no sense if the powers to be are managing the fishery as opposed to what's best for the commercial sector which personally I believe is the prevailing problem regulatory decisions are being based on.

The attached graph shows males are substantially smaller than females, because they grow slower and live shorter lives.

Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

I agree with some of that , but commercial guys are not targeting restaurant sized fish .
They want fish 4 pounds and up because in a good market they make 1 dollar more per pound .
So here in NJ when they are allowed say the 3000 pound weekly , they earn an extra 3k.


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Re: 2024 and 2025 Fluke Options Poll
 

I know you have tight commercial connection but from commercial guys I know I've been told 16" to 18" is the prime fish they look for and it was to supply enormous demand from the restaurant markets. If they are looking for 4 lb. plus fish, then the 16" - 18" inch fish are going back dead. Either way, it's a problem since they're all breeders and a majority females.