Summer Flounder

The 2002 New Jersey fluke season was decided on March 7 at the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council meeting held in the Galloway Township public library. The room was overflowing with anglers who came to make comments on the fluke plan or just watch the decision-making process in action. The council normally meets for 2 hours but extended the meeting almost an hour to accommodate all the folks who wanted to speak.

The opinions expressed by the anglers varied on which season/size & bag limit would best serve a particular area of the state or particular segment of the fluke fishery. In the end, the council voted to stay with the recommendation of their advisory committee that suggested raising the size by half an inch to a 16.5 inch minimum and setting the season from May 18 to September 24. The bag limit will remain at 8 fish.

Afterwards, many anglers expressed frustration that the council did not really listen to the public comment and had their minds made up before they came into the room. These anglers felt that they had wasted their time traveling and sitting through a long meeting to just have their comments ignored.  Well, I'm tempted to say "welcome to the world of fisheries management" because those of us who attend various meetings often feel this way, but in this case I have to defend the council. The public comments ranged from requests for early season openings to late season closings. Some wanted small fish, some wanted large fish. Many wanted things that were not allowed under the management plan. All in all, the council made the decision that they felt would best serve the broadest segment of our state. They were bound by the federal management plan to follow seasons and sizes allowed by the plan or else the entire state would face a moratorium and have no fishing season at all. It reminds me of the old saying that you know you are treating people fairly when everyone goes away unhappy and not just one side is unhappy.

There were differing opinions on seasons and sizes, but all the speakers had one theme in common, the current fluke management plan is broken, it is not working and it is not in touch with the reality of the fishery.

This plan was developed in the late 80’s after excessive commercial fishing pushed the stocks into collapse. In the early 90’s the stocks were in such bad shape the recreational community could not even catch its quota of fluke. We were glad to do our part to help rebuild the depressed stocks and willingly took on size and bag limits. We learned that fluke are faster growing than most other fish species.  They grow to around 8 or 9 inches their first summer and most will exceed 14 inches by the end of their second summer. They start spawning at about 14 inches long, so a two-year-old fish is already starting to multiply.

One of the main ironies about this FMP (fisheries management plan) is that as the years went by and the biomass continued to grow, our quotas were actually reduced. In 1994, the recreational quota was 10.67 million pounds of fish.  We came close to it by catching 9.33 million pounds. Then in 1995 our quota was reduced to 7.76 million pounds and we caught 5.42 million pounds. Our quota was again reduced to 7.41 million pounds in 1996 and it remained there until 2001 when it was again lowered to 7.16 million pounds. So from 1994 through 2000 our quota, or, more correctly, our TAL (total allowable landings) was held constant (7.41 million pounds) at the very time when the stocks were expanding. This scenario along with increased minimum sizes set the stage for us to continually exceed the catch targets established by the fluke plan.

In 1994, the size limit was 14 inches and we landed 6.7 million fish weighing a total of 9.3 million pounds with the average fish weighting 1.38 pounds. In 2000, the minimum size was raised to 15.5 inches and we landed 7.5 million fish weighing a total of 15.8 million pounds with the average fish weighing 2.11 pounds. You can see that the average fish weighed almost 3/4 of a pound more.  And even though by numbers of fish we exceeded our TAL by less than one million fish, we exceeded our weight by 8.6 million pounds. We were set up to fail!

It is recognized that recreational hook and line fishing is very inefficient, but as the stock expands we are bound to catch more fish. Back when the fish stocks were healthy and before there were any restrictions, the recreational community caught between 12 million and 38 million pounds annually with no apparent harm to the resource. In fact, I do not know of any fishery that was collapsed by recreational fishermen.  Each and every stock collapse of each and every fishery was the product of intense commercial fishing. The pattern that precedes a collapse is classic: first is the stable landings of commercial and recreational.  Then there is an increase in commercial landings.  Next the recreational landings start to slip but the commercial landings hold steady for a year or two.  Then the commercial landings drop dramatically. That is when the trouble is noticed, a plan is developed and recreational fishermen bare the brunt of harsh limits. There are many examples of this from cod to whiting to fluke. Also, many fish targeted only by commercial fishermen that are in bad shape.  Look at dogfish and monkfish.

It is time for the focus of this FMP to change! We need to recognize that the fluke stock is no longer a threatened stock.  We should treat it as a recovered stock and look at reasonable and sustainable harvesting. We need to get away from the ultra-conservative harvest limits that were great when rebuilding this fishery but are now needlessly restrictive and economically damaging. We need to get to a steady state for bag and size limits. This insanity of raising the size limit every year is just not working. We need to establish a reasonable size and bag limit and live with it for at least 3 to 5 years. This steady state will help fisheries mangers evaluate the fluke population by providing landing data that is consistent and comparable from one year to the next. We need to set size limits to a level that will again allow shore-bound anglers to participate and enjoy this fishery.