[Billfish715]

As you know, information about the current season won't be known or evaluated until after the season is over. Data from previous years is available and I've used it to draw conclusions about what has been done in the past to affect conditions in the present. My conclusions are that the current system is not and has not been working based on the intentions that were professed by the scientists and data analyzers. My solution is radical and will be met with political and financial resistance from the commercial fishing lobby. It's the same solution that has been voiced by many of the fishermen on this board and from other fishing organizations. Close the offshore fishing/spawning grounds to commercial fishing during the spawning period and restrict commercial fishing in areas that are identified as spawning grounds.

As for the questions which I posed before, in order to better understand what is happening now and be able to evaluate data now, the questions that I asked were to search out current data. If indeed there is a feeling that tournament entries are affected by the perception that there are fewer fish to catch and fewer big fish to catch, then that is relevant. If the tournament winning fish are smaller than in previous years, then that is relevant as well. Perhaps it's a sign/validation that the fluke stock is in trouble.

I'm as curious and concerned as the next guy about the future of fluke fishing. I'm sure you are too. Answers have been suggested by too many fishermen to count and there's nothing much to show for it. Rallies and testimony before Congress, courting various state legislators, not to mention the monetary donations that have been made for representation have not changed things very much.

We've become conditioned to seek bigger and bigger fluke at a time when those breeders are being scooped up by the commercial fleets, placing the fluke stocks in serious jeopardy. We are becoming almost as greedy as the commercial fishermen. I'm old enough to remember when catching a couple of 14-15 inch fluke was quite enough for a dinner for two. Try now to convince fishermen that it's okay to keep fish that size. What has changed in the last 40 years? The regulations and scientific engineering of the fish stocks, that's what. Today's new anglers and even the old timers are made out to be criminals if they ( God forbid ) keep an undersized fluke.

You are correct. Questions are always going to be asked. Answers will always be discussed. There's a mind set that has to change among the legislators and a willingness to admit the errors of their ways. For me, yeah, I'm always curious and always questioning. I do remember how things used to be before government interference, and they were a helluva lot better than they are today.

Oh, as for the data.........I'll defer to Dakota and his research.