This week’s edition of The Fisherman comes out on August 19, meaning just 37 days left in New Jersey’s 145-day fluke season. And by most accounts, it has not been a stellar one thus far, with cold water temps brought on by the upwelling effect from prevailing south winds, and scads of short fish just below the 18-inch minimum size threshold. While the fluke action began to turn on a bit towards the end of July, I’m hard-pressed to believe that our overall harvest numbers for 2024 will be affected much by a fourth-quarter fluke rout.
As the calendar flipped from July to August, I began to see a little grousing from the other side of the border on social media; August 2 of course was the date when New York’s minimum fluke size went from 19 to 19-1/2 inches, prompting many Empire State anglers to question why things were better on the other side of the border. I would just add, this “grass is always greener” debate needs to be taken with a little bit of management perspective. The New York fluke season opened on May 4, same as New Jersey. However, New York’s season runs through October 15, whereas the New Jersey season closes on September 25, giving New Yorkers 20 additional days to fish for doormats.
I’ve sat through countless fisheries management meetings in both states over the past 20 years, and I can tell you there’s always been a differing “two-state” perspective in terms of managing summer flounder. At the New York Marine Resource Advisory Council meetings I used to attend, councilors always felt length of season was more important than size limit, devising regs to open earlier for North Fork and Long Island Sound anglers, and closing later to cater to Long Island’s South Shore community. Basically, to get that 20 extra days of fluke season, New York has to keep the minimum keeper size on a much higher side.
On the other hand, while a longer length of season is always a top consideration at New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council meetings when choosing recreational fishing regulations, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has drawn a line in the sand on the size limit. Going back to 2017 when New Jersey was forced into a three-state compact of sorts with New York and Connecticut to share the same fluke regulations, NJDEP bucked the entire management system when it became apparent that a 19-inch size limit was being mandated by the federal government.
“Such a draconian reduction in the recreational harvest limit would be tantamount to a moratorium on one of the most popular fish sought after by recreational anglers, making it nearly impossible to keep any of the flounder they catch,” said then NJDEP commissioner Bob Martin. He went to explain how the decision “will actually result in anglers in New Jersey having to throw more dead fish back into the water than they can keep to eat, and the fish they can keep overwhelmingly will be reproductive females.”
That’s how the compact was broken, and why New York and New Jersey now have differing regulations. And had New Jersey opted to go down a half-inch in size this season, we might’ve had a few more keepers in the box, but we also would’ve given up 40 additional days of season. That’s the give and take of fisheries management; if you want more days you have to go a higher size limit.
Conversely, the smaller you set the size the more days of season you have to give up. New York anglers opted for the longer season with a higher size limit, while New Jersey officials started with the 18-inch size limit back in the winter and had public comment whittle it back to where everyone was happy with a 145-day season.
Well, as happy as possible.
