Looming end of season will someday be seen for mistake it is
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/31/07
BY JOHN GEISER
CORRESPONDENT
(PHOTO COURTESY THE FISHERMAN'S DEN, BELMAR)
Jimmy Bauni, Sea Bright, with a 10-pound, 8-ounce fluke he caught on a rental boat in Shark River Inlet on a live snap- per.
(PHOTO COURTESY BRIGHTWATER YACHT BROKERS, POINT P
Samantha Niziolek holds the 10-pound, 7-ounce fluke she caught while fishing with her family aboard their 38-foot Henriques Slapshot out of Southside Marina in Point Pleasant Beach on Aug. 25. She hooked the big fluke on a custom lure made by her father Mike.
The closure of the summer flounder season Sept. 11 will mark the first time since man first threw a spear or a bone hook into the Atlantic Ocean that the flatfish cannot be kept for food by an angler on that date in New Jersey waters.
This shutdown may be hailed as a triumph for preservationists, but it is a fisheries management blunder that will be one day recognized as a scientific mistake with serious economic and social consequences.
New Jersey anglers caught 2,926,000 summer flounders in 2000, more than any other state on the East Coast. Many were caught in September and October.
The total recreational landings for the East Coast in 1980 were 26,901,000 pounds. Next year they will be limited to 6,308,000 pounds.
This despite the fact that the biomass is estimated at 102,000,000 pounds, the largest since possibly the 1930s.
James A. Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, said Wednesday that he can hardly believe what has happened.
"This is the most popular recreational fish in the Mid-Atlantic region, the stocks are at a record level, and we're being shut down," he said. "It's difficult to comprehend that this is fisheries management."
What Donofrio is hearing is more and more grumbling from the fishing public who wants to go fishing, not dream about doubling the biomass in 2012.
"People are mad," he said. "They have to throw 16 1/2-inch fluke back, and they can go into the supermarket and buy 14-inch fish."
"People obey the laws because they feel it is the right thing to do, but when they perceive that the laws are unjust, they want a change," he continued.
"Can you imagine what the founding fathers would have done, if King George had shut down the fluke season Sept. 11?" he said. "John Adams would have been leading the way."
Capt. Chris Hueth, skipper of the Big Mohawk out of Belmar, said the Sept. 11 closure will work a real hardship on the fleet that targets fluke.
"We'll switch to sea bass, blackfish and whatever, but it won't make up for the loss of the fluke," he said.
Hueth was faced with poor drifting conditions Wednesday morning as was the rest of the fleet, but, when the wind picked up, he caught fish.
"We had a 9 1/2-pound pool winner — Jim Thompson of Morrisville — and he also caught a 6-pounder," Hueth said. "It was caught on a jig — 80 percent of the fish were caught on jigs."
Hueth said that as unhappy as he is about the Sept. 11 closure, he is even more uneasy about 2008.
"They'll be cutting us back more on the fluke, but if they go ahead with that 28 percent cut in blackfish — and it falls us on — we're really going to be in trouble," he said.
Capt. Bob Bogan Jr., whose Gambler docks at Inlet Basin, Point Pleasant Beach, said he struggled with the poor drift in the morning, but when the wind came up about 11 a.m. he caught some fish.
"Fishing was good Monday and Tuesday," Bogan said. "My brother Mike had the boat out, and he fished the hills as far as five miles off the beach. He had some nice fish."
Mike Fuller, Lacey, had six keepers to 4 pounds on the Tuesday morning trip, and Josh Berger, Lakewood, had four keepers to 5 pounds, and Dave Weber, Point Pleasant, had four keepers to 7 pounds on the afternoon trip.
Bogan checked his log book against last year, and found that he was fishing closer to the beach at this date in 2006.
"We're out in 60 feet of water on the hills and down the slopes to 70 feet," he said. "There are some fluke inshore in 40 feet of water, but not a lot."
Bogan said the end of the fluke season will hurt the bottom boats that will not be fishing the canyon more than it will affect him.
"We're going to make our first canyon trip Sept. 11, and I'm looking forward to it," he said. "We still have some room on that one."
He will be making canyon trips five days a week through the season with the boat leaving the dock at 6 p.m. and returning by 4 p.m. the following day.
Murray Weiner of Belmar fished with Capt. Bobby Quinn on the Ocean Explorer, Belmar Marine Basin, and caught his share of fluke on two trips this week. His heaviest fish was an 8-pounder.
Bob Matthews of the Fisherman's Den, Belmar, said he is not seeing as many doormats brought in as he had seen a couple of weeks ago.
"The keepers they're bringing in to the Den are averaging between 2 and 6 pounds," he said. "Ed Klumpp, Neptune, fished Shark River and he had six keepers to 3 pounds.
"I think the river fluke fishing will hold up right through Sept. 10," Matthews said. "But I don't know what to say after that. There won't be a whole lot to fish for, and there will be no fall winter flounder fishing. They took that away from us, and we used to count on it."
Capt. Ron Pry, skipper of the Miss Norma K, Ken's Landing, Point Pleasant Beach, said the poor drift hurt his production Wednesday morning, but Eileen Warren, Annandale, caught an 8.1-pound fluke on a sand eel and squid combination.
"We were fishing the Sea Girt reef," he said. "It was not good until 11:15 a.m., and the last hour and a half of the trip was good."
Capt. Scott Hilliard, Prowler V, Atlantic Highlands, said he fished Raritan Reach Wednesday and caught 30 keepers and about 80 shorts while coping with a wind-against-the-tide situation.
Emilia Barone, Morristown, caught an 11 1/2-pound fluke on Tuesday's trip aboard the Prowler V. Hilliard has scheduled a 3:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. bluefish trip Monday.
All I can say is that everyone who fishes should be sure to join their national/local lobbying organizations. It will keep getting worse until we get enough people in the effort. Yearly memberships cost less than a cooler of drinks and food for a day. Certainly a worthy investment for anyone who wants to fight for their right to fish.
I will never cease to be amazed at how many people HATE what goes on and do absolutely nothing to prevent it from continuing to happen in the future.
And it is the same preservationists that have severly limited the spiny dogfish commercial fishing allowing them to grow in mass to incredible levels. I don't have the numbers in front of me but it is unbelievable. The spiny dogfish eat pretty much anything especially the inshore varieties. Now I don't know for sure but I'll bet this has something to do with the low weakfish stocks. The common misconception is that Fluke fishing has been on the decline in recent years. Really, it has been quite good, I've never seen so many 15.5 to 16 inch fish before but the problem is they are no longer legal. We only had a few Fluke trips this year and had multiple fish over 20 inches on each trip. A few years ago that was rare. But of course to the politicians we are the cause of any depletion for the sole purpose of allowing the commercial boats to pick up more of a quota. And lets not forget what the commercial boats do to the Bunker stocks. There have been years where the bay is literally bursting with bunker and 10 lbs. bluefish are everywhere. Then one weekend you go out and there is NOTHING left. Now I know fish move around but there is no way that ALL of the Bunker could be gone in the matter of a few days.
Tunacity is right everyone has to go out and join the local clubs and Recreational Fishing Alliance so that we can do something about this. We have been members for years and it doesn't cost that much.
I hope that my venting here inspires other people to get out there and speak up for what you believe in.
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