NOAA is both right and wrong about Fluke

[Grady2]

I have to agree with skate on almost everything this year is the worst for me and my crew. Fluke fishing sucks this year. I've only been seriously fluke fishing for 5 years and have done very well in years past things aren't the same my buddy blames all south winds turning up cold water others blame draggers in the bay.what ever it may be we have to figure it out because this is not good.We need a NFA national fishing association.I enjoy reading and rarely respond because i can't work the computer to well and can't figure how to take my name off my post but i don't care anymore i said my piece.I hope everyone does better in the second half.

[laketrout]

I have been fluke fishing for 40 years. There is little doubt in my mind the commercial draggers wiped out the local population over the winter. Very little at all..

Don't believe me? Maybe your one that thinks the ling and whiting are still in demise due to recreational fishing also. The solution is real easy. Hold the commercials liable and account for their goddam bycatch....

[gnuisance]

Originally Posted by laketrout

I have been fluke fishing for 40 years. There is little doubt in my mind the commercial draggers wiped out the local population over the winter. Very little at all..

Don't believe me? Maybe your one that thinks the ling and whiting are still in demise due to recreational fishing also. The solution is real easy. Hold the commercials liable and account for their goddam bycatch....

How do we do that?

[reason162]

Originally Posted by gnuisance

I welcome your thoughts, insults and criticisms

I think blaming past regulations for our current situation is tomfoolery, based on eggshell-thin evidence and bro-science talk of sex ratio for a species that by all accounts is extremely fecund and resistant to sex ratio imbalance. I'll stand corrected if/when the sex study passes peer review, but even then...the net impact of rec fishing sex selection cannot explain the past decade of low recruitment.

The larger story is climate change, the thing that is turning global ecosystems upside down for every species (including us). To ignore that awesome phenomenon and point your entire finger at NOAA regulations...is insanity.

[gnuisance]

Originally Posted by reason162

I think blaming past regulations for our current situation is tomfoolery, based on eggshell-thin evidence and bro-science talk of sex ratio for a species that by all accounts is extremely fecund and resistant to sex ratio imbalance. I'll stand corrected if/when the sex study passes peer review, but even then...the net impact of rec fishing sex selection cannot explain the past decade of low recruitment.

The larger story is climate change, the thing that is turning global ecosystems upside down for every species (including us). To ignore that awesome phenomenon and point your entire finger at NOAA regulations...is insanity.

I think climate change is a factor as well. I hesitate to bring that up here because this crowd doesn't want to hear about it and the entire thing devolves into a climate change debate.

What I really want to talk about is why aren't the fluke here this year and what is the solution for sustainable summer flounder fishing moving forward? Everyone blames the commercial by catch situation but nothing ever changes. Do these guys have any accountability? How can we start the process of making sure they have some?

[Duffman]

fe·cund
ˈfekənd,ˈfēkənd/
adjective
producing or capable of producing an abundance of offspring or new growth; fertile.


Just helping out here.....

[reason162]

Originally Posted by gnuisance

I think climate change is a factor as well. I hesitate to bring that up here because this crowd doesn't want to hear about it and the entire thing devolves into a climate change debate.

What I really want to talk about is why aren't the fluke here this year and what is the solution for sustainable summer flounder fishing moving forward? Everyone blames the commercial by catch situation but nothing ever changes. Do these guys have any accountability? How can we start the process of making sure they have some?

Yeah the crowd doesn't want to hear it, but climate change is upending migratory patterns/populations around the world, there is no way its impact on a migratory species like fluke is nominal.

I read that NOAA is taking climate change into account for future modeling, if so that is the only way forward. Yes, better science re sex ratio/slot limits are good and necessary things, but they are baby steps in the context of even a 1 degree F rise in average water temperatures, and we're looking down the barrel of a much larger increase.

Originally Posted by reason162

Yeah the crowd doesn't want to hear it, but climate change is upending migratory patterns/populations around the world, there is no way its impact on a migratory species like fluke is nominal.

I read that NOAA is taking climate change into account for future modeling, if so that is the only way forward. Yes, better science re sex ratio/slot limits are good and necessary things, but they are baby steps in the context of even a 1 degree F rise in average water temperatures, and we're looking down the barrel of a much larger increase.

What the crowd wants to hear are proposed changes based on facts and not summise, conjecture or theories which is precisely what climate change and steepness are....theories. NMFS scientists themselves are divided on it's relevance. The facts overwhelmingly show a much more definitive and prolonged trend killing this fishery caused by the same failing management philosophies of NMFS. As I said the facts are there for anyone interested in reviewing them.

[bulletbob]

if by "climate change" you gentlemen are saying that this years COLD water has slowed the fluke bite, I might agree.. Its fast approaching mid July, and there are still bycatches of Ling inshore with the Fluke every day... Otherwise I call horse shit.. We have all been around long enough to remember DEAD fluke fishing on certain years, even back in the good old days before the terms "global warming" or the more politically correct term "climate change" were ever uttered.

Just because the NY Bight has been slow doesn't mean the fish have died off or changed their migration patterns because of ""climate change"".. Fluke range from Newfoundland to Florida and are caught by recs along the entire Altantic Coast of the US... Fluke fishing is doing well this year actually, along much of the coast..... bob

[Rocky]

Originally Posted by dakota560

What the crowd wants to hear are proposed changes based on facts and not summise, conjecture or theories which is precisely what climate change and steepness are....theories. NMFS scientists themselves are divided on it's relevance. The facts overwhelmingly show a much more definitive and prolonged trend killing this fishery caused by the same failing management philosophies of NMFS. As I said the facts are there for anyone interested in reviewing them.

Amen my friend.