Where the heck are the Fluke?

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Originally Posted by Joey Dah Fish

There is huge expansion in the population. Is that climate change or over regulation? Hmmmmmm

Could be any number of factors. Va and NC make up ~50% of the commercial quota, is it commercial over fishing by southern states in their local waters that depleted the more southern portion of the biomass and not migratory movement at all. You could make the same argument with whiting, cod and mackerel in our local waters, they were here years ago but now any sizable concentration is north. Climate change, we all know it's not. Commercial carnage that caused irreparable damage to the local biomass, we all know it was. Maybe expansion up north is the result of less recreational and commercial fishing there relative to our area. Could be changes in the ocean's ecosystem over the years due to storms. Look at what Sandy did up here to hard bottom areas that were covered up. Is it due to beach replenishment removing sand from the ocean floor and changing bottom contours. Is it bait movement or worse the displacement of forage by commercial efforts. Could be natural expansion, could be temperature changes but personally I don't think anyone can say for sure.

Anecdotal. When I was growing up, many years our family would go to Maine on vacation. Saco Beach Inlet was one of our stops along the way. Fishing was incredible for stripers and just about everything else. One year in the 70's, bunker showed up in big numbers for the first time. At the same time, huge bluefish showed up with them. None of the locals knew what they were, tackle shops didn't even stock lures to fish for them. Was that climate change or expansion based on bait movement. If the later, what caused the bait to move north? The bait was there and the bluefish followed, in that case it had nothing to do with warming water temperatures since there was still a thriving fishery in our local waters.

Stock assessment states average length to age for both male and female summer flounder has been declining since the 90's. If fish aren't growing faster I'd imagine lack of forage is a strong possibility. As Bob mentioned in his earlier post, is the location of the biomass being influenced by that as opposed to water temperatures. Years ago, sand eels were all over until commercial netting destroyed that forage base as well. Take away the bait, predators will seek food elsewhere. The amount of sand eels today, like everything else, pales in comparison to the numbers in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Change the food chain at any level and everything above that link changes with it. Go to Massachusetts and see how may sand eels are around compared to our local waters and it's hard to argue bait availability doesn't have some impact on geographical movements of fish stocks. If we didn't have the bunker in our area we've been seeing over the years would we have the amount of bass we've been experiencing during their migration. Not a chance. Bunker move off shore, predators follow. Reduction boats with their spotter planes mop them up and the bass are gone. Maybe the same can be said with fluke and sand eels. Remember years past seeing baby whiting, baby ling, baby weakfish, small porgies in fluke's stomachs. All those fisheries have either disappeared or declined significantly over the years. You can't deny there's climate change occurring, what impact it's having on stock movement is anyone's guess. It's easy to use climate change as a catch all reason for everything if all other possibilities are immediately discounted or ruled out.