The results of a recent collaborative study between researchers at Rutgers University and Stockton University of New Jersey, the University of Rhode Island, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, NY and Cornell University may hold the key to bold new management changes in the summer flounder fishery.
The research project, Sex and Length of Summer Flounder Discards in the Recreational Fishery, NJ to RI, spanned the 2016 summer flounder recreational season beginning May 23and continuing through September 16. Samples were collected aboard for-hire recreational fishing vessels from selected ports in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, and were supplemented by a series of back bay, shallow water trips.
Samples were collected from stations ranging in depth from 5 to 95 feet and spanning a latitudinal range from just off the coast of Delaware to coastal Rhode Island. According to the survey results, sex-at-length data was collected for a total of 2,243 discard-sized fish and 842 legal-sized fish.
Researchers say lab analysis findings confirm prior observations that female summer flounder dominate the recreational catch, although it was also demonstrated that this does not hold below the legal size limit where fish smaller than the legal limit were predominately male. On average, across all ports, dates and depths, the sex ratio approximates 50:50 at 15.35 inches in length, with males dominant in the size classes less than that mark and females dominant above the 15.35-inch (39 cm) mark.
“The data reported here provide important insights for possible management strategies in this fishery,” researchers state in their conclusion, adding that one potential management change for the future could be a slot limit fishery to distribute the fishing mortality more evenly across both sexes. Such strategy could be achieved by allocating some of the allowable catch to smaller size classes where males are more dominant.
In addition to providing a better understanding of the general biology of the summer flounder species, another possible management application is in the design of sex-specific assessment models to better analyze the fluke population. “Sex composition of recreationally discarded summer flounder remains a key need for development of a sex-specific stock assessment model, and the data generated in this study will be shared directly with the team developing that model,” the researchers noted.
Funded primarily through anglers and organizations supporting the Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund (SSFFF), the findings will be delivered to the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council on Tuesday, December 13 at 5 p.m. when Cornell University professor Dr. Patrick Sullivan is scheduled to speak to council members at the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court at 550 Light Street in Baltimore, MD.
It is hoped that this new sex-specific sampling information will help drive a new stock assessment model being developed by Dr. Sullivan in time for a 2017 benchmark stock assessment. Given that this information will also need to be peer-reviewed by an independent team of scientists, the critical sex composition data developed in 2016 may not actually be incorporated into new management strategies until the 2018 season.
“Our goal was to provide managers with better and more timely tools to create regulations that safeguard the fishery and still allow public access for all anglers whether they fish from beach, in bays or offshore,” said SSFFF board member Nick Cicero, adding “the management strategy of targeting just female fluke is a failed one and needs revisions.”
