Let me repeat this factoid from above :
And they spend their summers dragging the Nantucket shoals! That fishery has already become a shell of what it was even 10 yrs ago.
Correct, Va and NC make up almost 50% of the commercial harvest and NC, more than Va., harvests a majority of their quota in the winter up north. That wasn't the case years ago before they single handedly destroyed the southern most Chesapeake stock. Then they targeted the Mid-Atlantic biomass and now they're focused on the southern GOM biomass. Almost 50% of the entire commercial quota is taken between January through March. Why? Market demand and wholesale ex vessel prices with Christmas and New Years AND the fish are in very concentrated schools offshore. It's also the time of year the stock is furthest offshore which means commercials have to burn more fuel getting to them. That's exactly why they target the largest specimens to get 2 - 4 ex vessel catch values and kill all the juvenile and or younger age fluke caught in the process. The dead discard levels are enormous and is the primary reason we never see last year's shorts return as next years keepers. Dead discard levels are off the charts as illustrated by the chart from 2011 Larry was good enough to post. Believe me, if they were that high from federal observers 15 years ago, based on todays market prices and regulations they're substantially higher today yet NMFS allows commercials to self report 16.1% dead discard percentages on their vessel trip reports. It's completely asinine but it's how the system works. Massive amounts of waste caused by ineffective regulations and NMFS allowing the resource to be wasted and ultimately destroyed which it will be as long as commercial catch values are maximized.
The total estimated biomass of Fluke for 2025 from Maine to North Carolina was 89.32 million pounds. This indicates that the stock is healthy, and not overfished, and is growing. The target level NOAA is aiming for is 107.08 million pounds.
Then I would ask the same question that precipitated my original post which is why do tens of millions of almost keepers EVERY year never come back as keepers the following season? And how can targeting the harvest of any stock's primary spawners AND not protecting the spawn from commercial onslaught during their offshore migration ever result in a healthy and sustainable fishery. Asking NOAA to assess the stock's health is commensurate with asking commercials to report their own dead discard percentages. The large breeders are being removed from the fishery by commercials and juveniles are being killed by the millions in that process. In 3-5 years, you'll see where this fishery is. In the late 70's, NOAA and NMFS we're saying the fluke fishery was not over fished and by 1981 the fishery collapsed which caused substantial reductions in quotas by almost 50%. As a result commercials were forced to start targeting other stocks including winter flounder which within a few years destroyed the winter flounder stock. It's never come back. We're in the process of reliving history and NOAA and NMFS will be the last to admit to it.
