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Thread: New flounder limit

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Oyster, shark and collard man said they find levels of a certain pfizer product in sharks on the reg. Stiff competition out there in the blue water.
    i see what you did there.
    if you were doing there what I think you were doing.
    Ugh. Stupid people piss me off.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    i see what you did there.
    if you were doing there what I think you were doing.
    You ain't dumb

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by GMAC View Post
    As soon as they hit 15, they're outta the water and in a cooler.
    Unfortunately this is often the mentality I see on flounder. Being that legal size flounder are getting harder to finder, fewer get spared.

  4. #24
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    https://content.govdelivery.com/acco...letins/2bd59b7

    Southern Flounder Update

    Over the last year, many of you have probably heard about the decline in our southern flounder population, so we wanted to provide our tagging program newsletter subscribers with the latest information as we make plans to rebuild the fishery. Recently, scientists from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida gathered all the available data on southern flounder to perform a regional stock assessment, which looks at population trends and the overall health of the fishery. While flounder don’t typically move all that much within a given season, there is some movement of fish between states over time and mixing of larvae when adults move offshore during winter to spawn. As a result, the flounder between NC and the east coast of Florida are interconnected and considered to be part of the same “biological stock.” The results from this stock assessment, while not totally unexpected, were nevertheless alarming. Southern flounder have been overfished for many years and the population has declined sharply over the last decade.

    Flounder.png

    South Carolina’s main inshore monitoring programs, the trammel net and electrofishing surveys tell a similar story. These programs sample our estuaries year after year and are our best method for following trends in inshore fish populations. Both surveys are catching fewer flounder and the fish they are catching are smaller on average than in previous years. The bottom line from the assessment and SCDNR’s data is clear: rebuilding the southern flounder population to a healthy, sustainable fishery is going to require a significant decrease in the number of fish harvested. Because our commercial flounder fishery in South Carolina is very small, the solution will need to come from our anglers, who account for over 99% of the state’s catch.
    Over the last year, we’ve been speaking with many of you throughout the state to get input as we make potential plans for a rebuilding effort. Another 2,000 of you answered the call and responded to our online survey. Here are the main takeaways:
    • Anglers recognize the decline in flounder, stating that they are catching fewer and smaller fish than they have in the past
    • An overwhelming majority would like to see the fishery recover quickly
    • Anglers support a combination of management options that would get us to that goal

    Based on our data and the input of our constituents, SCDNR is recommending that action is taken to reduce harvest and achieve a full recovery of the flounder population within a 10-year period. There are many different combinations of management options that could get us to that goal, but a piecemeal solution is not going to be effective. For example, reducing the bag limit from 10 fish to 5 fish may seem like a way to cut the harvest in half, but in reality, that change would have a much smaller effect. It would only impact those less frequent trips where people were already harvesting more than 5 fish a person (likely someone fishing via gig or a very skilled hook and line angler). To have a real positive impact, a bigger reduction in catch will be needed. We have suggested a combination of options that would maximize angler’s access to the fishery while still reducing catch enough to achieve that goal of a full recovery:
    • Reduce the bag limit from 10 fish/person/day to 2 fish/person/day
    • Reduce the boat limit from 20 fish/person/day to 6 fish/person/day
    • Institute a fishing season from July 1 to October 31

    Many of you are probably aware that North Carolina has already made significant changes to reduce their harvest. Those actions are going to have a positive impact on the population, but this is a regional decline that will need a regional solution. As someone who, according to my wife, has spent maybe too much time chasing South Carolina flounder, I’m excited about the prospect of a quality fishery with bigger and more abundant fish and I hope we’re able to get there in the coming years.

    While SCDNR monitors our local fish populations and provides recommendations for effective management, we do not make changes to bag limits, size limits, etc. Any change to existing law would ultimately occur within the South Carolina General Assembly. We welcome feedback on this and any other issues related to saltwater fishing. You can contact me; Matt Perkinson, Saltwater Fishing Outreach Coordinator at PerkinsonM@dnr.sc.gov with questions or concerns.
    Be on the lookout for our February newsletter, where we’ll cover what we’ve learned about flounder movements from our volunteer angler tagging efforts.

  5. #25
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    Good info. SW, what percentage of the recreational catch would you guestimate are caught/gigged out of guide boats?

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hogg View Post
    I loved hearing my grandfather talk about putting pitch pine knots in a candle lantern to go striking at Pawleys. When the water cleared in the fall he said the black folk would walk the south Pawleys creek in a line during the daytime and strike them.
    I used to run with the country black folk on the northern end of Coastal SC. They did what's called proggin. They'ed straighten the tines out on a pitch fork and lock it into a long pole. Then they'd walk shoulder to shoulder across a creek and stab everything on the bottom. Big or small, it went on the stringer. Doubt they do that any more.
    "Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration" -Izaak Walton

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    Good info. SW, what percentage of the recreational catch would you guestimate are caught/gigged out of guide boats?
    Tough to say as I don't get to see what many recreational boats are taking home. Due to the way not many flounder are legal I feel most caught end up going home.

    I really push catch and release and doubt I took more than 5 flounder this past year.

    I do notice when I travel (in state) to fish I catch notably more flounder than at home.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by SouthernWake View Post

    I really push catch and release
    I guess that does make good sense all the way around for you guys. Thanks...

  9. #29
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    Jan 2015
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    Quote Originally Posted by SouthernWake View Post
    https://content.govdelivery.com/acco...letins/2bd59b7

    Southern Flounder Update

    Over the last year, many of you have probably heard about the decline in our southern flounder population, so we wanted to provide our tagging program newsletter subscribers with the latest information as we make plans to rebuild the fishery. Recently, scientists from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida gathered all the available data on southern flounder to perform a regional stock assessment, which looks at population trends and the overall health of the fishery. While flounder don’t typically move all that much within a given season, there is some movement of fish between states over time and mixing of larvae when adults move offshore during winter to spawn. As a result, the flounder between NC and the east coast of Florida are interconnected and considered to be part of the same “biological stock.†The results from this stock assessment, while not totally unexpected, were nevertheless alarming. Southern flounder have been overfished for many years and the population has declined sharply over the last decade.

    Flounder.png

    South Carolina’s main inshore monitoring programs, the trammel net and electrofishing surveys tell a similar story. These programs sample our estuaries year after year and are our best method for following trends in inshore fish populations. Both surveys are catching fewer flounder and the fish they are catching are smaller on average than in previous years. The bottom line from the assessment and SCDNR’s data is clear: rebuilding the southern flounder population to a healthy, sustainable fishery is going to require a significant decrease in the number of fish harvested. Because our commercial flounder fishery in South Carolina is very small, the solution will need to come from our anglers, who account for over 99% of the state’s catch.
    Over the last year, we’ve been speaking with many of you throughout the state to get input as we make potential plans for a rebuilding effort. Another 2,000 of you answered the call and responded to our online survey. Here are the main takeaways:
    •Anglers recognize the decline in flounder, stating that they are catching fewer and smaller fish than they have in the past
    •An overwhelming majority would like to see the fishery recover quickly
    •Anglers support a combination of management options that would get us to that goal

    Based on our data and the input of our constituents, SCDNR is recommending that action is taken to reduce harvest and achieve a full recovery of the flounder population within a 10-year period. There are many different combinations of management options that could get us to that goal, but a piecemeal solution is not going to be effective. For example, reducing the bag limit from 10 fish to 5 fish may seem like a way to cut the harvest in half, but in reality, that change would have a much smaller effect. It would only impact those less frequent trips where people were already harvesting more than 5 fish a person (likely someone fishing via gig or a very skilled hook and line angler). To have a real positive impact, a bigger reduction in catch will be needed. We have suggested a combination of options that would maximize angler’s access to the fishery while still reducing catch enough to achieve that goal of a full recovery:
    •Reduce the bag limit from 10 fish/person/day to 2 fish/person/day
    •Reduce the boat limit from 20 fish/person/day to 6 fish/person/day
    •Institute a fishing season from July 1 to October 31

    Many of you are probably aware that North Carolina has already made significant changes to reduce their harvest. Those actions are going to have a positive impact on the population, but this is a regional decline that will need a regional solution. As someone who, according to my wife, has spent maybe too much time chasing South Carolina flounder, I’m excited about the prospect of a quality fishery with bigger and more abundant fish and I hope we’re able to get there in the coming years.

    While SCDNR monitors our local fish populations and provides recommendations for effective management, we do not make changes to bag limits, size limits, etc. Any change to existing law would ultimately occur within the South Carolina General Assembly. We welcome feedback on this and any other issues related to saltwater fishing. You can contact me; Matt Perkinson, Saltwater Fishing Outreach Coordinator at PerkinsonM@dnr.sc.gov with questions or concerns.
    Be on the lookout for our February newsletter, where we’ll cover what we’ve learned about flounder movements from our volunteer angler tagging efforts.
    Based on what I have seen the data provided this is much needed. I would say gigging has led to a majority of harvest in SC but the commercial harvests in NC has been over the top for a long time. I used to gig a fair amount before I got too busy and it was not uncommon to limit out with nice fish. You also wouldn’t see another boat around. The last few times I went which was years ago it was not uncommon to see multiple boats everywhere you went. I blame social media to a degree leading to increased interest and expanding technology that makes it that much easier. Better mapping, gps, lighting, weather forecasts.

    From a commercial prospective, I often wonder when you walk through any given store how much of the fish you see is ultimately wasted.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  10. #30
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    not seeing the benefit of a season except to try to control people more and limit the number of days people can fish. June is summer and summer is for fishing. 2 or 3 limit makes sense to me.
    "Check your premise." Dr. Hugh Akston

  11. #31
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    Yeah a season would suck. Imagine the ramp on opening day of flounder season in murrells inlet.

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by drwilly View Post
    not seeing the benefit of a season except to try to control people more and limit the number of days people can fish. June is summer and summer is for fishing. 2 or 3 limit makes sense to me.
    We can’t fish outside of flounder season?

  13. #33
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    Some of my constituents will lose their mind with those proposed dates.
    Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

  14. #34
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    Nov 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by Palmetto Bug View Post
    Gigging used to be something you needed a mentor to ever get started. There just weren't many people doing it. I can remember gigging one scorching, steamy hot night in Charleston Harbor in my tighty whiteys. There was never anyone on the water at night. We had it all to ourselves any night we went. I have since been out on nights where it seemed like a boat rigged with stadium lighting every few hundred yards on every bank you checked.
    Remember it much the same...used to stick them with my grandfather by the Pitt St Bridge. We would wade with Coleman lanterns and would tie a cooler off to our waist and float it behind us as we would wade the flats

  15. #35
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    I mostly fish for trout and flounder. This year for the flounder was actually better than the last few. But I still like the idea of smaller bag limits. I rarely keep fish. When I fish tournaments I try my best to release after the weigh in. I probably caught 20-25 flounder over 20” from late spring to late summer. I’ve never been gigging
    867-5309

  16. #36
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    I tag way more fish inshore than I kill these days but probably 50/50 on legal flounder. I like to eat them too.

    I think the decline is multi factorial.

    1) More people fishing. This is people taking up the sport, new to the area fishermen, and guides taking people who havent fished a day in SC. I have a problem with a guide taking two different groups(half day) in one day and keeping boat limits twice. At current regs not an issue but will be when limit is lower.

    2) Gigging is essentially unregulated. I can count on one hand when I know anybody to have gotten checked after dark.

    3)Bycatch commercial fishing.

  17. #37
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    Here is a study conducted in NC showing a correlation between water temp and flounder sex:

    https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/hookline...o-become-male/

  18. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by SouthernWake View Post
    Here is a study conducted in NC showing a correlation between water temp and flounder sex:

    https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/hookline...o-become-male/
    Shrinkage is real.
    Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

  19. #39
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    Nov 2001
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    Green Pond SC
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    NC has a “recreational commercial” license ...I shit you not. It’s the most contradictory fishery I have ever seen. My roommate from college has a smaller length gill net (apparently the length is the differentiator from com/rec) and he absolutely hammers the flounders. One can assume the combined larvae between NC and SC fish, or lack thereof, can not help. We can look at NC fisheries management as an example of what not to do.....
    “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” - Thomas Jefferson

  20. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duck Tape View Post
    Some of my constituents will lose their mind with those proposed dates.
    keep in mind its not you or your constituents that will be affected. its the people who voted for you. they are the ones whose vote you should cast.
    Ugh. Stupid people piss me off.

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