Flounder Reg Changes

cheapdate

Eight Pointer
Made a couple of phone calls and damned if they didn't. Slightly differing versions of the story from side to side. Sure would hate to sit on the mfc in a rec seat if they follow through with closing rec flounder and commercial stays open.
You really believe the recs will have hit or surpassed that quota by late August? The DMF has no idea what the recreational landing is. Even so, I'm willing to bet that there will be a rec closure, with a severely limited commercial season. There is no more road to kick this can down.
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
so the rec dmf commissioners pissed off the rec fishermen who want to harvest flounder. LMAO

wonder why all this info has to be pried out versus some sort of information campaign by somebody to get this info out in the open.
anyone with a link to either "side" of this issue.
 

cheapdate

Eight Pointer
so the rec dmf commissioners pissed off the rec fishermen who want to harvest flounder. LMAO

wonder why all this info has to be pried out versus some sort of information campaign by somebody to get this info out in the open.
anyone with a link to either "side" of this issue.
I would say that's pretty accurate. Or you could say the rec dmf commissioners were put in a position where they had to choose between what was good for rec flounder fishing or what was good for flounder conservation.
Good information from both sides of the issue can be found at
 

darenative

Twelve Pointer
You really believe the recs will have hit or surpassed that quota by late August? The DMF has no idea what the recreational landing is. Even so, I'm willing to bet that there will be a rec closure, with a severely limited commercial season. There is no more road to kick this can down.
When you read on the internet about fisheries management, fisheries research studies, and management plans that what ever group say aren't working and you see the exact opposite on the water, it's hard to put too much faith into any source of information other than first hand information. What i will say about this latest planned closure for rec flounder is it's been a pretty good year statewide for flounder. Better than i've seen in the past 4 or 5 years per my fishing journal. Had the current management plan been a complete flop as the rabid rec groups were claiming, it would seem impossible that my personal rec catch numbers are up from years past.
Is there room for improvement?
Sure, there always is in any fishery.

I think this closure is more about grandstanding over the inequities of the flounder fishery. 80% commercial and 20% recreational has pretty much been the catch split for as long as i can recall. It was noble of the mfc recs to use the rec flounder fishery as the sacraficial lamb to prove a point. They got their bluff called and are stuck with a :donk:donk:donk:donk sandwich. It's either loose credibility and backpeddle on grandstanding or feed the rec sector that awesome :donk:donk:donk:donk sandwich.
That first big bite is well deserved by the cca crowd..eat up boys, there's plenty of sandwich to go around
 

cheapdate

Eight Pointer
When you read on the internet about fisheries management, fisheries research studies, and management plans that what ever group say aren't working and you see the exact opposite on the water, it's hard to put too much faith into any source of information other than first hand information. What i will say about this latest planned closure for rec flounder is it's been a pretty good year statewide for flounder. Better than i've seen in the past 4 or 5 years per my fishing journal. Had the current management plan been a complete flop as the rabid rec groups were claiming, it would seem impossible that my personal rec catch numbers are up from years past.
Is there room for improvement?
Sure, there always is in any fishery.

I think this closure is more about grandstanding over the inequities of the flounder fishery. 80% commercial and 20% recreational has pretty much been the catch split for as long as i can recall. It was noble of the mfc recs to use the rec flounder fishery as the sacraficial lamb to prove a point. They got their bluff called and are stuck with a :donk:donk:donk:donk sandwich. It's either loose credibility and backpeddle on grandstanding or feed the rec sector that awesome :donk:donk:donk:donk sandwich.
That first big bite is well deserved by the cca crowd..eat up boys, there's plenty of sandwich to go around
I agree with most of what you said. Regarding bluffs being called, it was the DMF that got called. I think they really thought that enough of the rec votes would cave. Basically the DMF said okay rec votes, your so hell-bent on conservation of flounder, time to put your money where your mouth is. And that's when the rec votes collectively pushed all their chips to the center of the table.
 

sky hawk

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Thank you. Now it’s starting to make more sense. I’ve been trying to figure out how we went from status quo to a season closure with a single status update from the ASMFC. I’d eat that sandwich for a season if that’s what it takes to balance the quota, but... I’m skeptical.

I’m for comms staying in business, but I’ve never understood why 2% of the users get 80% of the quota.
 

JohnBoat

Banned
Maybe every rec should just buy an rcgl and just out net the commercials. That would be hysterical. Imagine 10's of thousands of individuals wrapping everything in nets. What a sh@t storm it would be.
 

HotSoup

Old Mossy Horns
Maybe every rec should just buy an rcgl and just out net the commercials. That would be hysterical. Imagine 10's of thousands of individuals wrapping everything in nets. What a sh@t storm it would be.

Nothing hysterical about that.....I used to have one till they raised the fee to $70. Only had it for the crab pots
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
where are the set of facts for NC on the breakdown of rec versus commercial kill on trout, channel bass and flounder.
anyone?
 

jbaldwin

Six Pointer
Rumor has it that saltwater licenses are down 200,000. Just got to that from a source. I have only heard this. No Facts....
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
thank you.
i get from that that: commercial harvest was 16% of the red drum kill; 6% of the trout harvest and 80% of the flounder taken.
so to me the trout and drum rec guy's only way to improve is to letem go back and kill comorants and sharks. :) i dont understand their butthurt on the commercial guys. That gets into the estuary trawlers i guess?

i dont understand the flounder issue at all. all i know is they are highly valued by both sides thus should be the basis for a solution that screws neither side.
i want the arbitratior job on that negotiation. :)
 

Starfan

Eight Pointer
Pops got em good this week. Had them for supper the last two nights and, put several packs in the freezer plus, gave my buddy who is dying of ALS a big bag. I mostly offshore fish but, seems to be a pretty good flounder year to me.
 

JohnBoat

Banned
thank you.
i get from that that: commercial harvest was 16% of the red drum kill; 6% of the trout harvest and 80% of the flounder taken.
so to me the trout and drum rec guy's only way to improve is to letem go back and kill comorants and sharks. :) i dont understand their butthurt on the commercial guys. That gets into the estuary trawlers i guess?

i dont understand the flounder issue at all. all i know is they are highly valued by both sides thus should be the basis for a solution that screws neither side.
i want the arbitratior job on that negotiation. :)

I'd assume that trawling inshore waters and killing millions of pounds of small fish in nursery areas probably isn't good for trout and reds. I agree that flounder are valuable and that both sides should want a solution. To do that both side would have to take reductions in how much they are allowed to keep, or bigger size limits. One side has done this. One side has not. Take a guess.
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
I'd assume that trawling inshore waters and killing millions of pounds of small fish in nursery areas probably isn't good for trout and reds. I agree that flounder are valuable and that both sides should want a solution. To do that both side would have to take reductions in how much they are allowed to keep, or bigger size limits. One side has done this. One side has not. Take a guess.
I may be mistaken but it sure seems that the comms speak with one voice.
the recs are all over the place some cussing the cca view others embracing it.
till that gets fixed the recs cant be satisfied.
 

Justin

Old Mossy Horns
We don’t have reds here. We’ve got drum and channel bass, and red snapper, but no reds..... try the gulf coast for their puny excuse for “reds”.... I’ll stick to the drafthorse sized drum/channel bass we have here ?

Ok that’s my pot stirring for the day. Off to the land of Canucks and poutine for the day. I’ll check back in later today if the Mounties don’t keep me.
 

darenative

Twelve Pointer
I'd assume that trawling inshore waters and killing millions of pounds of small fish in nursery areas probably isn't good for trout and reds. I agree that flounder are valuable and that both sides should want a solution. To do that both side would have to take reductions in how much they are allowed to keep, or bigger size limits. One side has done this. One side has not. Take a guess.
Not entirely true on the only one side has taken reductions. Comms took a big reduction by default when they got hit with the esa turtle suit over large mesh gillnet use a few years back.
 

darenative

Twelve Pointer
I'd assume that trawling inshore waters and killing millions of pounds of small fish in nursery areas probably isn't good for trout and reds. I agree that flounder are valuable and that both sides should want a solution. To do that both side would have to take reductions in how much they are allowed to keep, or bigger size limits. One side has done this. One side has not. Take a guess.
Trawling bycatch is impacting everything management wise. You get those big boats outside the colreg demarcation lines and our fisheries are gonna rebound so quick it's gonna make your head spin.
 

Justin

Old Mossy Horns
Trawling bycatch is impacting everything management wise. You get those big boats outside the colreg demarcation lines and our fisheries are gonna rebound so quick it's gonna make your head spin.

I don’t know if I could stand the drum, sea mullet, pompano, Spanish, and cobia fishing getting any better than it is.
 

wolfman

Old Mossy Horns
thank you.
i get from that that: commercial harvest was 16% of the red drum kill; 6% of the trout harvest and 80% of the flounder taken.
so to me the trout and drum rec guy's only way to improve is to letem go back and kill comorants and sharks. :) i dont understand their butthurt on the commercial guys. That gets into the estuary trawlers i guess?

i dont understand the flounder issue at all. all i know is they are highly valued by both sides thus should be the basis for a solution that screws neither side.
i want the arbitratior job on that negotiation. :)
is commercial bycatch #s part of their harvest data?
 

sky hawk

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
There's a lot of extrapolation (error) in the rec data by default. They take a small sample and extrapolate.

The commercial harvest brought to dock is pretty accurate. I don’t know how much surveying is done of by-catch, but most is never recorded.
 

GSOHunter

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
^^Looks that way. One thing to remember is most of the rec data is extrapolated from ramp side surveys and random survey calls.
It's just a best guess type deal.
I'd love to see how the data was compiled. In all my years of fishing I only participated in one ramp survey.
 
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