Where the heck are the Fluke?

Originally Posted by Capt. JJ

1. Many years ago, when I mated on an infamous charter boat out of the Point, I had amazing opportunities to work deck for some of the best Captains in the biz. This topic invariably came up whenever we had slow days chasing Flatties, and every single Captain I asked about it all told me, basically, the same thing: from all of their connections with draggers, and divers, and daily trips themselves, the Summer Fluke action depended entirely on the prior Winter, and whether or not the Draggers "found" the main stocks on their Wintering grounds. Their belief was some years the commercial guys could really zero in on the biomass, and they could basically wipe out a large portion of the stock before it ever made its way inshore to us. When that happened, the Summer was ALWAYS slower. (In their humble opinion). Nothing scientific about that, but these guys are well known here on the board, and without naming names, if I did mention them you would all see my point about this being legit. They also told me that the very best places to target these fish, REGARDLESS of the season, was on wrecks.

This is one reason why fishery management not closing the season to commercial harvest during the fall spawn makes no sense. It's entirely about commercial lobbying power, the health of the fishery is subordinate. If the health of the fishery wasn't in question and recruitment strength of the biomass wasn't down for almost 25 years I'd have a different opinion. But they are and not addressing it is just another reason the fishery is in the condition it's in and we have a three fish limit, higher size restrictions and shortened seasons. Recreational anglers lose days to weather, they can never be made up. Commercial concerns lose days to weather, they still maintain the same quota and have six two month intervals to fill them. 40% increase to commercials in '19 is just another disproportionate allocation of a public resource and should give a good indication of where the management of the fishery is focused.