[bob23]

check out Save The Summer Flounder Fishery Fund we need to voice our concerns as one and be sure we're heard

 

[FlatDaddy]

The best thing fisherman can do to help preserve our right to fish is to NOT vote Democrat. The entire scenario that flounder fisherman are now facing is due to a deal Bill Clinton(DEMOCRAT) struck with the enviromentalists(DEMOCRATS). The current cutbacks and looming closures are in no way based on science, they are based on liberal Democrat politics.

 

[classicrockfish]

Amen! A very insightful message. Thank you for posting it Classicrockfish

 

[OffTheHook II]

check out Save The Summer Flounder Fishery Fund we need to voice our concerns as one and be sure we're heard

We need to bombard anyone who will listen with emails, phone calls and letters.

This is an entire East Coast problem.

 

[hippie]

Flatdaddy, I agree completely with you!! Lets face it, flounder fishing is a thing of the past and it never will recover. We have the Demos and "nit-wits" like them sitting on the federal and state fisheries management commisions. Lets face it, they are out to ruin fishing forever! Look at the options for this year. They put a minimum length on the flounder which is only to wipe the population out. The latest survey shows that from 16" to 17.5" the ratio of male to female is 85% female. Over the 17.6" length and the results were 100% female. So as anyone can see, every flounder of keeper length will be a female. These are the breeders that lay 400,000 eggs compared to the smaller females that lay 40,000 eggs. Not hard to see that the people in authority are in reality "screwing" us. Bob

 

[FlatDaddy]

The liberal Democrats are also working very hard to take away our right to drive on the beach from Hatteras to Assateague Island and beyond.

I have no problems with fisheries management as long as science is the controlling factor, not politics. The liberal Democrats have inserted politics into fisheries management and it will have a disasterous effect on all fisherman. Once they succeed in eliminating the right to fish for the most popular fish in the Atlantic (flounder), they will move onto another species. Are we all going to sit back and do nothing?

Who here has not seen the PETA ads with a fishhook in the mouth of a lab or a golden retriever? These liberal Democrat extremists are serious, and we need to hit them back hard where it really matters.....IN THE VOTING BOOTH.

Write ALL of your elected representatives and demand that politics take a backseat to science when it comes to fisheries management, and get out and make your vote heard.

The time to close a season on a species of fish is when it is in real trouble, not when the biomass and proportion of breeding stock is at all time highs since management measures began in the early 1980's.

 

[DCR102]

Any response to this?

http://www.tidalfish.com/Fishing_Report_News_Records/p2_articleid/421

Dems, 'Pubs, Indies?

 

[ETOWN]

Bob23, It is apparent that what is going on in New Jersey is all about New Jersey . While we in Delaware have been severly restricted with respect to summer flounder you folks have been having a ball. Over the years I could never understand why we were putting undersize flounder back and the Jersey boats were taking them home. It was all about money and the fact that the resourse was being depleted did not matter. I am all for restrictions if it is going to help preserve this fishery for my grandchildren. We can not keep taking from a resourse and expect it not to have an adverse affect. I understand that a lot of folks make there living from this resourse but everyone needs to bite the bullet. I think that there should be across the board regulations and it should be determined by Science not Speacial interest groups looking out for themselves.Especially politicians that use politics rather then Science.

 

[Tom Powers]

The resource is not being depleted. It is not being rebuilt to the schedule that was put together some 10 years ago. That is not to say that the species is not in a state of collapse or any where near it. So folks can debate if the rebuilding schedule is being done in the correct time frame, people can debate if the target spawning stock biomass is the correct target, people can debate if we will ever be able to reach that target even if we shut all fishing for fluke down.

But pleassseeee don't say that the species is in trouble.

With respect to across the boards regulations. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. Such measures are nothing more than a fish grab by NY. From what I understand they are looking at a 4 fish limit; a 20.5" and a May 15th to Sept 1st season. Why because they went over by a lot in 2007? I don't know what they harvested in 2007 poundage wise as compared to the rest of the coast but in 2006 they harvested 22% of the coast wide harvest.

 

[FlatDaddy]

The bottom line is that anglers need to write their elected representatives and demand that fisheries managment be based on science and not on politics. Recreational fisherman have(for the most part) abided by flounder regulations, and flounder have rebounded drastically. I Remember before there was a size limit. You could catch all the 8" fish you wanted and some kept them. 20" fish were considered doormats in the early eighties.



Now the stocks at all time highs since flounder management began. Under Bill Clinton, a deal was struck to appease the environmentalists who SAID that they wanted to rebuild flounder stocks to some pipedream level that' they were' in the 1930's. Penalizing law abiding flounder fisherman who have been part of the astonishing regrowth of flounder stocks is just plain wrong. Scientists should determine the allowable quota that can be harvested w/o impacting a continued reasonable growth rate for the biomass as a whole.


Incidentally, the Enviro groups who struck the deal with the Clinton Administration are the same guys who want fisherman off the beaches altogether. Who hasn't seen PETA'S ad campaign with a Black Lab with a fish hook in it's mouth? PETA'S friend's in Congress have a big (D) after their names. Completely closing flounder fishing next year makes absolutely no sense based upon all fisheries management rationale. You close down fishing for a certain species at or before the stocks have collapsed, not when the biomass is at all time highs, just because some anti-fishing environmentalists get some Democrats to go along with it.


Don't fool yourself into thinking both political parties are behind this upcoming closure. Write your elected representatives now, or get ready to start targeting dogfish or skates.