[Hunt n' Fish]

Wild Eye's

I will use them for stripers, weaks and maybe even fluke in the right sizes. Check out the discussion in the surf forum under "anything happening on the South Shore" for more info.

 

[Striper77]

2 Populations of Fish

I what the DEC says is correct and there are two separate populations of fish, one inshore doing badly, and one offshore doing well, then the commercials should not mind giving up all inshore commercial fishing. After all, why would they want to waste time fishing where the fish are not doing well, while just 10 miles out the fish are doing fine ! Lets move the draggers out a few miles ( and not just around inlets ), according to DEC they will do better out there anyway !

 

[Scalawag]

I dont think thier dragging the bays & creeks though.

I wonder if theres more to it then the " draggers " because from what Ive learned the flounder in the Bays, Creeks, Canals ect. always stay & live there. Thier dormant until water temps are right then put on the feed bag.
Thier called "Local Fish" .
Im not trying to stir the pot here or anything but I asked around trying to figure it out myself.
One of the guys who really explained this to me & Ive become friendly with owns maybe the most famous fishing station on Long Island in Freeport.
Also I was told that a second body of fish makes thier way in from the inlet later in the season , those would be the flounder that you catch by Short beach, and by the JB Piers.
Seems the problem is 2 fold { @ least}
Alan

 

[TheBigOne]

No Flounder .. blackfish...fluke.. blowfish ....what next

The simple matter is ..
the fish are not there

How do we get the fish there ..
allow them to stock

It worked for striped bass,and there is something to be said for history ..

 

[Calmwater]

Unite

Recreational anglers have no large national organization that speaks for them. It seems that there are many small groups having limited local impact but no one large national organization that can bring focus to the issue as well as mobilzing recreational anglers into a political body. If you want to affect change in this country you need to be able to bring votes to the table. What is need is one organization to focus what must be at least tens of millions of recreational anglers (both fresh and salt water)and there buying power

 

[617537]

RFA.RFA.RFA. WWW.savefish.com I strongly recomend joining. They keep you informed and give you a list of senators congressmen, etc. they are starting to make a difference. Check out their site....Steve

 

[strip]

Two populations of Flounder????!!!!

Yea!..........The "offshore" fish that are being scooped up by the draggers. And the few of them that make it inside.

Give me a break!

 

[Tiderunner]

The Law of Supply & Demand

It's the law of supply and demand. As long as the general public, both foreign and domestic have this urge to eat fish then the commerical guys are going to meet the need until the supply runs out. If you want to help, stop buying flounder, fluke, striped bass, swordfish, shark etc. etc. As long as there is a market then someone will find a way to supply it. Write to your local congressman! Controls are needed without putting the commerical guys out of business as well as the local tackle shop and seafood resturant.
Just because there may be a bag limit on the species you are fishing for doesn't mean you should always limit out. Throw a few back for the future.
Keep what you need and leave the rest! That's how you can help.
Tag & Release
Tiderunner

 

[togmaster]

The Real reason no flounder

The reason the Flounder are not here is because the water is so warm the Stripers never left the bays or they are in earlier then
normal. In turn this means the Stripers love to eat flounder. I think that is why you don't see them in the bays this year.
I know my commercial friends are getting them very good on the ocean side. Yet none in the bays. Myself and other commercial
guys have been saying the Bass have been hurting the flounder for years, but everyone says no? Now you see it first hand! we need
to fish for smaller stripers, the limit should be from 28" to 36" to many people are killing the big bass leaving all the school to
medium size fish to grow and grow in population and over powering the food chain.
You may think I am nuts but I'm doing this for 30 yrs. and have stopped fishing commercially after he GE waste spill.
Now that the bass have come back its time to regulate them again?

 

[quiknet]

Shutupandfish,
I know that being a commercial fisherman is an extremely tough way of life. I worked with a clammer on the north shore one winter and couldn't believe what stamina these guys have. But the nature of commercial fishing and fishery regulation is a real mess. This has happened many times. A species of fish is targeted by the commercial sector. Technology allows the guys to become more efficient and increase their catches. Incresed success attracts more boats into the fishery. More boats catch more fish and the populations start to decline. Supply goes down which forces prices up. As prices go up, the commercial pressure increases. When the fishery is on the brink of collapse, the federal government has to step in and "buyout" a great percentage of the fleet, usually paying them far more than market value for their vessel, in a way, rewarding them for destroying a fishery. And as a commercial, what are you going to do? Stop fishing and let your family starve, or get while the getting is good. This scenario has played itself out in the New England groundfish fishery and I think to a smaller extent it is what is happening to our winter flounder.
And to the guys who think it's the stripers or the seals (I had a suspicion it was the fluke). Seals eat mainly herring (ever notice how they kind of show up and disappear at the same time) and while a few stripers may stay in the bay all winter, there is no way that they could eat enough flounder to make a noticeable difference. Wise up guys and write to your elected officials before it's too late.

 

[Scalawag]

I like Togmasters idea of smaller stripers being legal

Sorry if a little off topic. I'm not sure if theyre eating flounder or not but we should leave the bigger fish to become cows and have a keeper range { slot limit is it called?} of maybe 20 - 30 "
Another reason this makes sense to me is smaller stripers taste 100% better, theyre so good to eat compared to big keepers.
But I guesss thats not happening.....
Alan

 

[flukerr]

The warming of the bay waters has alot to with a decline of the flounder fishery.The change of a couple degrees changes the flounders habits,of where they will settle in for the winter.This matter and all others dicussed contribute to the decline of what once was a fun fishery...

 

[togmaster]

It all!!!!

IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!

 

[SEAWOLF]

GLOBAL WARMING!!!

Bring on the GROUPERS!!!!!

SEAWOLF

 

[Scalawag]

remember how good flounder fishing used to be?

I'm 40.
When I was a kid into my teens I used to dig earthworms out of the garden and we'd " load up " over by Baldwin Bay, Freeport park, the creeks, no chum.
It was 1 fish after another, wonder if our kids { even though I dont have any} see this kind of flounder fishing again?
Its a shame, really is. alan

 

[619285]

LETS SEE, 30YRS, 40YRS, NA, LET GO ALL OUT 50YRS. LETS TAKE A LOOK HOW MUCH LONG ISLAND HAS GROWN IN THESE YEARS??
I WOULD SAY ALOT, WOULD'NT YOU??
PEOPLE, LESS LAND,MORE TRAFFIC,MORE BOATS,MORE RUNOFFS OF POLUTION!!!

JUST A THOUGHT?... YOU LIVE ON A ISLAND,WATER ALL ROUND YOU?... THATS A LOT OF FISHING!!! IT WORKS BOTH WAYS!!!

 

[Scalawag]

Shutup&Fish, you really think pollution is responsible for .....

The flounders decline?
I dont.
I bet its a combo. of things
with Commercial fishing leading the way.
Also I'm not saying I dont like flounder readily available at the fish market & folk have a right to make a living.
Just sucks that's all.
Alan

 

[dwk2252]

I agree with almost everyone you all
talk about Flounder what about Whiting
you see plenty of them in Pathmark fish
dept. where are they getting them from?
the same place where they get the Flounder from and what about Bergals you
notice they are dissapearing as well I
know they are pests but they do play a vital role on reef and wreck life you
see how the Porgies returned this year
I guess that closed season probably had
alot to do with it I guess it's time
the Comercial fleet gets their due time to close them down on this I would also
love to see a closed season for the Whiting as well maybe we can rebound with a winter fishery that only us old timers can remember

 

[strip]

Here is a MAJOR reason why the flounder are gone.
Recreational fisherman. That's right......the recreational fisherman has to take a major part of the blame.

Not because they over fish them or keep shorts or anything like that. The recreational fisherman could never have the impact on any species that the nets can.

But the recreational fisherman is still largely to blame because he mainly only fishes. sure he talks and gripes about the decline in fish stocks. He rightly blames the commercial sector for decimating the populatiuons of fish.

it is what the recreational fisherman doesn't do that hurts the fish so badly.

He doesn't get involved( I can see those minds and ears closing right about now)

You see.......for us it is a passtime....we are playing.

Sure it is a passion for most of us....but it all boils down to the fact that we do it for fun not for a living.

You see if we did it for a living then we would surely show up at HEARINGS for instance. You know the HEARINGS they have on Stripers for instance. They do that to get the public's input.

The commercials do it for a living therefore they show up at these things............Heck they even take off of work to go. It is critical for them.
They lobby hard for there living. Maybe they even grease a few palms down the line.

but the recreational guy doesn't quite have the same sense of urgency. You see his LIVING isn't on the line. His boss isn't "in on it". He works hard and when he is not working he has precious little time to do what he loves to do...........fish.

This is natural of course. It is ALMOST hard to blame the recreational guy. The commercials just have more at stake and therefore have to be doing everything they can as a group to protect their interests. And hey we rec guys do get involved ........we have formed organizations to make our voices heard. Some of us even put in alot of time lobbying for the cause. God bless those who recognize that it takes WORK.

But most of us simply can't get motivated enough to really get out there and get involved because in the end it is only our hobby not our livelihood.

Oh well.................there is always GOLF.

 

[619608]

Where are the Flounder?

After reading all the posts for the last hour, I think it's safe to say that everyone and everything from commercial to recreational fisherman, seals and stripers, global warming, El Nino, the Yankees losing the World Series, has played a hand in the demise of the winter flounder fishery. I've worked as a deckhand and part-time captain on party boats in the early to mid 1980's and I remember what flounder fishing use to be like. We would sail 2 half-day trips a day and catching several hundred fish a trip was fairly common. Sometimes over 1000 fish would come over the rails. Customers would keep almost everything they caught because no one saw this coming, and at the time they probably wouldn't have believed it considering the amount of fish available. For the most part, only very small fish were thrown back, so part of the blame goes to us, the rec guys. However, I feel the commercial guys are just as much to blame. I don't know the exact numbers, but I recently read somewhere that while recreational catches of flounder have taken a nosedive the last few years, commercial catches have actually gone up. With rec catches so low the last few years, and people losing interest, (I know I have and I love flounder fishing) I find it hard to believe that at the present time the rec guys are hurting the fishery as badly as the commercials are. A lot of party boats don't fish for flounder anymore, or if they do they have cut their seasons short to concentrate on fish they can put their customers on.(fluke, blacks, bass, etc...) Then we end up putting more pressure on those fisheries...it's a vicious cycle. There are so many factors involved, I don't know what the answer is. From what I've seen the last few years, things have not improved very much. What it may come down to, and I hope it doesn't, is a complete moratorium on the winter flounder fishery for a year or two. I understand that that is easy for me to say...the stakes aren't the same for me as they are for people in the industry who need to make a living, but we've pushed the flounder to the limit. Something needs to be done to give these fish a chance to recover. I'm not trying to blame any one group or thing in particular...I think we've all had a hand in it. If anything I've said angers anyone, it wasn't my intention. I'll get off my soapbox now, thanks for hearing me out.
Tom