Individuals writing letters won't get the DEC to act. The Towns have to get involved. Use Town money, fishing fund money/state/federal money. Long Island towns put seed clams in the bay, why should it be different with Flounder ? The DEC worries about disease, why is the University of New Hampshire stocking Flounder up there? With Winter Flounder, you stock them in the Bay they'll stay there for life and not swim to another area. Winter Flounder won't swim from another state and repopulate LI bays again. What's happening now , the Flounder stocks are so low they can't build a population with the predators. Like what's happening up in Canada with Cod. It's been beaten down so far that they'll never recover on their own. The Local Towns have to step up and demand action. Winter Flounder is the ideal fish to stock. Stock millions of 6 inch flounder in the bay , ban recreational /commercial fishing where they swim until the stock recovers. Do something !!!!! Incredible how this has gone on for the last 30 years and nothing was ever done about it. If Flounder swam in the Great Lakes , they'd act right away.
Long Island Towns have to band together and get the DEC to Stock Winter Flounder
- Thread starter Pangaroo
- Start date
poorrichard
Angler
The DEC is only concerned with violations/ fines and licenses ($$$$$). They are NOT proactive and have never been,
There was a NY State Ocean Science Lab in Montauk that raised baby flounder years ago. The DEC would not let them
release the baby flounder in Montauk.
I agree strongly with the above that something has to be done regarding the lack of a flounder population. Maybe the local fishing clubs, tackle shops and the partyboat fleet can start petitions to put some pressure on the local politicians
The only way anything will get done is to make the local politicians realize that many voters want something done.
Just a thought: If Lee Zelden (Shirley) is a candidate for governor. He might be a good place to start.
There was a NY State Ocean Science Lab in Montauk that raised baby flounder years ago. The DEC would not let them
release the baby flounder in Montauk.
I agree strongly with the above that something has to be done regarding the lack of a flounder population. Maybe the local fishing clubs, tackle shops and the partyboat fleet can start petitions to put some pressure on the local politicians
The only way anything will get done is to make the local politicians realize that many voters want something done.
Just a thought: If Lee Zelden (Shirley) is a candidate for governor. He might be a good place to start.
I hope Lee Zeldin is elected Governor. Heard he really stood up for Fishermen out East.
Look how the Party boats got all together to fight the Fluke Regs., they got Sen. Schumer to help. and why can't they do the same with winter flounder ? It's odd none of them, the Fishing Magazines all do nothing. They got the clout, the Bully Pulpit to speak out and demand change. Nothing ?
I wish I had the Legal skills to file lawsuits, because I'd haul the DEC into court and have them explain why they've done nothing to protect a species that could vanish from our waters because of disease. So tempting to file a lawsuit against the State DEC and expose them as a bunch of do nothing frauds. What Court has jurisdiction over a matter like that ?
Exactly what disease are you talking about? I've never seen one cited as a cause of flounders' demise.
Comorantitis Sealitis To name a few
Have to add Striperitis to that list, but that's not the list of "pathogens" I was looking for...
Aquarius
Angler
Just my undocumented opinion but the demise of the blackback flounder has got to be something else. Stripers, seals and birds can't be the reason. I have not seen a flounder caught from the Freeport, Merrick, Belmore or Wantagh bays in 20 years. You don't hear about anyone catching them incidentally. They are just not here for the us, stripers, birds or anything else to eat. In the 70s and 80s it was a no brainer to go out and catch at least a few. If you knew what you were doing, you could fill a 5 gallon bucket in a few hours.
If it was because of predators you would still see people catch them occasionally. The only place I have seen or heard of flounder being caught are out in the ocean. Nothing from the bay.
Re: Disease , That's what the DEC says.
From time to time they have diseased trout and salmon upstate and they always find a way to stock them.
How can it hurt stocking millions of 6 inch flounder in the bay and see what happens? Do Something ! It's the perfect fish to stock and won't swim to another region. I agree most of flounder are being caught in the ocean and around wrecks where they congregate .Doesn't mean they moved out of the bay because the bays aren't clean. Flounder are still in the bay but the population is tiny.
The Early 1980's was probably the best fishing I ever had in the NY Bight. You could hop on a Freeport Party Boat and easily catch 5-10 cod a trip, catch all the whiting you wanted near Ambrose, Catch a gazillion flounder. Even Fluke made a huge comeback when the Foreign Fleet was kicked out. The only species in trouble were the Striped Bass. The PCB scare and they came back in huge #'s.
It was great fishing in Reynolds Channel in the early 1980's in May when Flounder were migrating. You anchored a short distance from The Point Lookout Boat Ramp next to the Marsh and one Flounder after another. And you'd catch Fluke if you let a piece of squid drift back .
I wish the DEC would do something about Winter Flounder. The last time I caught a Flounder I was 27 and now I'm 58. I still remember the old Flounder spots in the bay.
It's overfishing, species that wintered in the deep got wiped out by the Foreign Fleet- Cod, Fluke, Porgies, Seabass. Species like Whiting wintered inside of 12 miles for the most part and remained abundant throughout the 60's and 70's, same with Winter Flounder.. Striped Bass were netted on the beach. The US Fleet grew and the heart attack scare caused people to eat
more fish. Flounder and Fluke were targeted and Fluke Collapsed in the late 1980's. Commercials targeted the other native fish in the are to make up for the loss of Fluke.
From time to time they have diseased trout and salmon upstate and they always find a way to stock them.
How can it hurt stocking millions of 6 inch flounder in the bay and see what happens? Do Something ! It's the perfect fish to stock and won't swim to another region. I agree most of flounder are being caught in the ocean and around wrecks where they congregate .Doesn't mean they moved out of the bay because the bays aren't clean. Flounder are still in the bay but the population is tiny.
The Early 1980's was probably the best fishing I ever had in the NY Bight. You could hop on a Freeport Party Boat and easily catch 5-10 cod a trip, catch all the whiting you wanted near Ambrose, Catch a gazillion flounder. Even Fluke made a huge comeback when the Foreign Fleet was kicked out. The only species in trouble were the Striped Bass. The PCB scare and they came back in huge #'s.
It was great fishing in Reynolds Channel in the early 1980's in May when Flounder were migrating. You anchored a short distance from The Point Lookout Boat Ramp next to the Marsh and one Flounder after another. And you'd catch Fluke if you let a piece of squid drift back .
I wish the DEC would do something about Winter Flounder. The last time I caught a Flounder I was 27 and now I'm 58. I still remember the old Flounder spots in the bay.
It's overfishing, species that wintered in the deep got wiped out by the Foreign Fleet- Cod, Fluke, Porgies, Seabass. Species like Whiting wintered inside of 12 miles for the most part and remained abundant throughout the 60's and 70's, same with Winter Flounder.. Striped Bass were netted on the beach. The US Fleet grew and the heart attack scare caused people to eat
more fish. Flounder and Fluke were targeted and Fluke Collapsed in the late 1980's. Commercials targeted the other native fish in the are to make up for the loss of Fluke.
Last edited:
poorrichard
Angler
Aquarius I was born in 1957. Flounder fished starting in the early sixties with my dad. The entire Captree fleet would anchor up off Hecksher State Park. Yes, we did not know any better. We would fill a bucket with flounder. 20 to 25 fish each was the norm, times the number of fares on the boat. Once the calendar changed to April. Blowfish would start to mix in with the flounder.
St. Patrick's Day was the "official" start of the spring flounder fishing.
Did the fleet fish it out to a certain extent? Yes. That is how good the fishing was at the time.
However, when the fishery started to fail. The DEC did nothing. They are still doing nothing 40 years later.
Pressure on the local politicians is the only way to get things changed.
Remember as I said before. The DEC is only worried about one thing, $$$$$$.
St. Patrick's Day was the "official" start of the spring flounder fishing.
Did the fleet fish it out to a certain extent? Yes. That is how good the fishing was at the time.
However, when the fishery started to fail. The DEC did nothing. They are still doing nothing 40 years later.
Pressure on the local politicians is the only way to get things changed.
Remember as I said before. The DEC is only worried about one thing, $$$$$$.
Maybe a Class Action lawsuit against a Politician because they appoint the wrong people to run the DEC ? Especially with all the focus on the environment they'd respond and order the DEC to do something. The DEC studied Winter Flounder a Couple of years ago. Never saw any reports. The other magazine ( don't know if I'm allowed to mention them by name) with all their subscribers could easily assemble a staff of volunteer lawyers/fishermen and file a class action lawsuit against the DEC and fight them in court. Nothing for 30 years ! They'd be more popular if they were Fishing Activists .
Lawyers love Class Action Lawsuits because they're usually the only ones that actually get any significant fees from them.
Who's stopping you from trying to find a shyster who would take this one on?
longcast
Well-Known Angler
In my younger days, fished mostly from shore with bare minimum tackle. There was no money for party boats. Bait was died clams, and if money was good a dozen worms used sparingly. The marshes of Quogue were my favorite. It was always cold, and no matter what - a few always came home in a few hours, some trips better than others. We ate what we could and we shared with our wonderful neighbors on "banner" trips. Thank you dad for getting me out there!!
@Pangaroo There have been many efforts to bring back, what at one time was the most sought-after fish in NY. There was a group back in the 80's that were working hard at getting the state to stock them, but it was shot down. The main reason was there was and still is the threat of adding a different strain that could threaten the species even more. This was about the time that stocked salmon were being introduced on the west coast. Turns out the comingling of stocked and native salmon resulted in a disaster as they eventually were unable to reproduce.
With that said, many anglers, maybe even @Roccus7, are unaware, that around that same time in the 80's when we were trying to restore the strip[ed bass population, over 5% of the biomass was stocked striped bass. Now that seems to have worked out fine.
The fact is though the blackback flounder are thriving. The problem is they've moved offshore. I think it's more of an environmental issue than anything. We're finding the same with many fish ie: striped bass, bluefish and weakfish just to name a few.
With that said, many anglers, maybe even @Roccus7, are unaware, that around that same time in the 80's when we were trying to restore the strip[ed bass population, over 5% of the biomass was stocked striped bass. Now that seems to have worked out fine.
The fact is though the blackback flounder are thriving. The problem is they've moved offshore. I think it's more of an environmental issue than anything. We're finding the same with many fish ie: striped bass, bluefish and weakfish just to name a few.
Use local Flounder for the Eggs . IMO, Flounder disappeared overnight in the early 1990's because of overfishing and the population can't grow because of predators. If it was just Flounder I might agree with you. When Flounder disappeared , Whiting, Ling, Blackfish, Cod and Fluke all disappeared around the same time around 1988-1993. I saw it with my own eyes. All the stocks bounced back after the foreign fleet left, and the Americans wiped out the stocks again. I remember in 1989 how terrible the Fluke fishing was. They were wiped out by the Commercials offshore and we've been heavily regulated ever since- 19 inch limits, 4 fish -. The University of New Hampshire is stocking Flounder.
This is my theory- The commercials wiped out Fluke in the late 1980's offshore during the Winters, The Feds banned Commercial Fluke Fishing. The Commercials targeted Whiting, Ling, Winter Flounder inshore to keep in business. When there was nothing in the winter for the recreationals to catch, they all targeted Blackfish . The Asian population exploded in NYC and put additional pressure on Blackfish. I saw this with my own eyes in the late 80's - mid 90's.
Did not know that so I did some reading. Data suggest it wasn't a great example of success. Here are some snippets from a great summary article (Striped Bass Stocking Programs in the United States: Ecological and Resource Management Issues):
This table shows the total stocking reported to ASMFC:
10.5 million fish over 8 years isn't much across the entire east coast and the article only cites significant success in the Pawtuxet River system, a single river system that got over 25% of the total stocking. It seems that the severe regulatory actions of restrictions and moratoria had more impact than the stocking, without any of the potential genetic issues due to stocking, or as they put it, "Stock Enhancement".
I quote from the article:
The stocking of large numbers of juveniles in order to increase the numbers of sub-adult and spawning fish appears to have been successful, at least in some tributaries Patuxent River... the Patuxent River is an exception, since there appears to be a significant hatchery contribution to the spawning population and viable fry.
A summary of stocking:
Cost of individual fish production for the Chesapeake Bay striped bass stocking program ranged from 0.42 cents to $4.28, depending on the facility and the phase of fish produced (Upton and Mangold 1996). Total costs for rearing 7.8 million striped bass at U.S. federal hatcheries and power company hatcheries during the period 1985-1995 were estimated at $7,135,839. Total costs of any stocking program, including start-up costs if infrastructure such as new hatchery facilities are required, should be weighed against the benefits in terms of the economic value of recreational or commercial fisheries to be restored and/or enhanced, as well as the ecological value derived from reestablishing biodiversity or community structure. No such study has been conducted for stocking programs involving migratory striped bass. A last, somewhat philosophical issue is: Why stock if a wild, self-sustaining population can be maintained through controlled harvest? Stocking is expensive as noted above, requiring extensive use of limited funding available for fisheries management, and has other associated problems (maintaining appropriate genetic diversity, etc., see below). In theory, wild populations should sustain themselves at no cost to society as long as spawning stock biomass is sufficiently high. However, good management requires constant monitoring to collect and analyze data to ensure that sufficient spawning stock biomass is maintained, and such monitoring also is expensive. We are not aware of any studies that compared the costs of these two management approaches and reached a conclusion as to which is most cost-effective for sustaining public trust resources. Grimes (1998) recently reviewed the historical development of marine stock enhancement and discussed the rationale for attempting to enhance marine populations using hatchery-reared progeny; the same issues apply to discussion of anadromous stock enhancement.
Grimes noted that artificial enhancement of natural populations, if it can be accomplished, would be an attractive solution to fishery managers who are desperate to recover depleted populations. But,
he also raises the issue of whether marine stock enhancement is simply “techno-arrogance”, our belief that we can avoid making the difficult decisions necessary to conserve natural populations and the ecosystems that produce them through the techno-fix of enhancement (Grimes 1998). He concludes that, although the scientific basis for marine stock enhancement has significantly advanced, “...it is not yet possible to conclude that marine stock enhancement is or is not biologically and economically
feasible”, and noted that the desirability of stock enhancement for recovering populations must be weighed against the far less expensive, but more politically difficult, traditional management approaches such as size limits, catch quotas, gear restrictions, and harvest refugia. Our sentiments lie with maintaining the wild populations because so many genetics pitfalls are avoided under that alternative as well.
Bachala
Angler
The concern with any aquarium raised fish is that you will introduce disease to the wild stock if released. I think that was the point trying to be made. This is why many in the natural sciences are reluctant to release pen raised fish into the wild.
This is what I believe to be the downfall of the Black back flounder, eels, piper fish, and the seahorses we had in the south shore bays. It's the cormorant ! I first saw one hunting ducks in the early 70's didn't know what it was. Moved out to a waterfront home in 1982 and saw an explosion of cormorant flocks in my canal. They arrive in March and are still here in mid December though they are constantly being replaced by migrating birds. I'll leave just before dawn to go fishing and see a dozen or so at the mouth of my canal of which a few can be seen with an eel, or peanut bunker, piper fish, white perch, and I've even seen them with full size bunker. They reportedly eat 3-5 lbs. of fish each a day. Going thru your legislators for stocking won't solve this problem. The only way in my opinion to allow the population of many species we've lost to rebuild is to do a mass reduction of the cormorant. BUT YOU CAN'T they are protected because they migrate between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. On the Great Lakes the Government has coated eggs in the nest, to try to cut down the population because of the effect they have on the fish stocks in the Great Lakes. We recreational anglers do not have the number of petitioners or resources to go against the GOVERNMENTS E.P.A. Once again it's the old saying "THE TAIL IS WAGGING THE DOG" I live on the Santapoque Creek in Lindenhurst A.K.A. Taco bell Creek
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