Female-Male Fluke

[Billfish715]

I recently visited a saltwater hatchery in Lake Jackson, Texas where they raised redfish, seatrout and flounder. The flounder/fluke were raised inside under controlled conditions of light, salinity, temperature etc. Their holding tanks were similar to very large vats. This is quite a simplistic explanation but what was very interesting was that there were only one or two females in the tank along with over a dozen males. Males were noticeably smaller and lived only about three years while the females were much larger and longer lived. The males don't grow as big nor live as long as the females. Fish that are bigger than 19" are probably females and we are being forced to believe that we are saving the population when in fact we are probably doing more harm by targeting the large females. Wake up "scientists"! You can't have it both ways. The males don't live more than three years and most will die before they are legal size for us to keep.