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Originally Posted by Blind Archer
Being a Raritan bay local my whole life and having some un-imaginable catches through out the years, my first notice of the decline in flounder was in the early 90's. Before that, the party boats really didn't work the west end of the bay too often. The spring run marquis were lit up with "Bay Flounder" and a new era of pressure on the pre-spawn females was in gear. The loss of roe ripe females from the year classes started the numbers to fall off to where a dozen for a couple of hours was decent catch. If the Boston harbor flatties can be fished out to warrant the current limits, Jersey certainly could too! Just curious, with the warming waters, does any one have insight to the New Hampshire and Maine whiting and flounder fisheries ?
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Thank you.. I didn't think I was crazy... I too recall when the party boats started fishing off Union beach and even further west... A few years later the numbers started to drop off fast.. I am NOT blaming the party boats, OR recreationals, OR netters.. I think we all took too many fish when they were easy pickins... Did anyone REALLY need a couple of full five gallon buckets of huge flounder, every time out?... I recall some of those fluke sized Raritan Bay flounder having yellow tails btw...
I recall one day fishing just off the old busted down Keansburg Pier[before it was built back up].. My brother and I were in a little tin boat, and 2 big party boats from AH showed up... Water was shallow maybe 12-15 feet..
The two boats got real close together, and started revving their engines together.. The water in back of the boats was just churning like crazy.. They did it for a minute or two.. The only thing we could figure out is that they were stirring the bottom up, loosening little critters to draw flounder under the boats.. never saw that before or after that one time.
Look guys, I'm on your side. I just want the fish back where they were, and where they belong.. Big numbers are great, but in my opinion even recreational guys can put a huge amount of pressure on certain stocks, and flounder and probably blacks, are those kinds of fish, because they are "in range" for a good number of fisherman, for a good part of the year... bob
