Where Have All The Fluke Anglers Gone?

Early in the spring, I opined in this space that fisheries managers should not have sacrificed size for season. It was an unpopular view, but I think reality has vindicated my opinion.

I get a plethora of fishing reports from charter captains, headboat skippers and tackle shops fed to my inbox on a weekly basis. And so far this fluke season, there seems to be very little fluke fishing going on. Sure, there are some scattered reports of a keeper here or a keeper there, but participation seems low, with most anglers tangling in the spring striped bass run or, on the party boats, still getting into ling and cod fishing. Water temperatures remain too low for consistent fluke fishing in much of our area, and those who have caught keepers have done so by using specific methods employed at specific times of day – namely, the outgoing tide.

This bothers me because we had the option to drop the size limit for fluke below 18 inches – a monstrously high limit – this year. But anglers begged the state Marine Fisheries Council to defer to a longer season, instead, and not worry about the size limit. Perhaps for the 50 or so people who attended the Marine Fisheries Council meeting, they have been enjoying the early start to the season, but for hundreds of thousands of anglers who will fish for fluke all summer and fruitlessly attempt to pick up a keeper, the season won't be so enjoyable.

When I see few reports of anyone even attempting to fish for fluke, and confirm this by heading out on my boat and seeing things up close, I wonder why state regulators chose to deprive anglers of a realistic – rather than a token – chance of catching a keeper this season so an infinitesimally-small number of people could get an early start to their respective seasons.

Sadly, the real victims of this situation will be those who argued most strongly for an extended season versus a smaller size limit: for-hire captains. From what I observe, most captains are fishing for stripers, ling and cod. When they finally do switch to fluke, I wonder how many anglers with memories of an exceedingly slim picking of keeper flounder last year will pony up the dough this season to go fishing.

Let's not forget those 17.5-inch fish that will die a pointless death after being thrown back this year.

To be fair, the back end of the season will be extended as well, giving anglers the chance to pick up some big, ocean fluke in the fall. But even then, post-Labor Day fishing for most people is relegated to the weekends, following a season of 7-day-per-week fishing with a size limit in place that will have decimated back bay anglers' chances of catching a keeper.

I suppose it was a no-brainer for fisheries managers to come to the decision they did on regulations this year after everyone in the room at the meeting unanimously called for a longer season versus a shorter size limit. That's a simple case of majority rules. The only problem was that the majority – the hundreds of thousands, if not millions – of anglers who will walk away from the 2011 fluke season without a single keeper, was not in the room.

Perhaps they were all out fishing for stripers.