Fish by number
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Fish by number
By Charley Soares
GateHouse News Service
She heard me but she didn’t respond. The lady looked down at the handsome fluke then back at me and finally asked if I was kidding. I wish I had been but her fish was 19-inches and a fine specimen at that but in Rhode Island waters fluke (summer flounder) must be 20-inches and her first flounder of the season had to be released. Now ordinarily she is a very understanding and cooperative person, but she had worked for almost an hour before she hooked this fish and was ecstatic when I slipped the net under it.
That was when I removed the fish from the net and measured it before informing her that it was an inch shy of the state’s minimum size. This lady has been catching fluke for decades and has become a very good hand at putting these toothy flounder in the fish box. After pouting for a moment she gave me the nod and I sent the big flounder back to the depths hopefully to grow another inch.
We’ve come a long way from the days when common sense and angler discretion were the deciding factors in determining whether or not to keep fish, but with today’s repressive regulations fishing is becoming a game of numbers and those numbers are not in our favor.
I don’t believe that it was the days of unlimited bag and unrestricted size limits got us into trouble; it was the heavy commercial pressure placed on our inshore species once the offshore fishing crashed. Today despite substantial increases in most of our inshore fisheries we are being harassed by unreasonable lawsuits from the conservations groups who do not even have a stake in these fisheries. So here we are with size limits that are so absurd that it threatens even an honest man to cheat just to bring a single fish home to feed his family.
Two weeks ago a commercial charter boat with a full complement of patrons fished from Point Judith, R.I. to Sakonnet drifting over usually productive bottom and they only caught six fluke over 21-inches which is a disappointment for the fishermen but a death knell for the party and charter boat operators who require a healthy fishery in order for their business’ to stay afloat.
From my observations over a long period of time the summer flounder (fluke) resource is in good condition, yet the legal harassment prevents managers to allow more liberal limits. We have transitioned from the days when the fluke season began in mid May and ran through the summer up to mid or late October to the current situation where the Rhode Island fluke season opened on June 17 and runs through December. While that might sound generous the minimum size is 21-inches and the daily bag limit is six fish.
In Massachusetts, the fluke season opened on July 1st and closes on Aug. 13 with a five fish a day bag limit of flounder 18.5 inches and over. A friend of ours fished off Newport, R.I. last week and caught 27 fluke and did not have a single fish over 21 inches. He had numerous fish in the 17 to 19-inch class with the majority of the fluke in the 18-inch range which is a very good eating size.
I know that I can catch and release fluke all day long with very little mortality however someone who does not use the proper hooks and rips those hooks from the fish is killing a dozen fish for every legal (if they are lucky) fish they fortunate enough to put in their fish box.
Earlier this June, my wife and I were killing time between tides so we began fishing for scup in a place where these pan fish were frequently under the Rhode Island 10.5 inch minimum size. We kept at it and managed to catch a dozen between us, enough to make a few meals and share with the Sakonnet weather lady who has a penchant for broiled scup.
During this encounter my bride caught a handsome 18-inch tog and began making observations about what a great meal it would make. I waited until she was finished making plans for her fish before I gave her the bad news. Her prospective meal exceeded the Rhode Island 16-inch minimum size for tautog however that season was closed during the month of June so our tasty feast was reluctantly released to swim another day.
Without one of the state marine fisheries pamphlets for Rhode Island and Massachusetts a person could get into hot water not to mention paying a fine so I’d recommend picking up a copy of the 2009 regulations and keeping it with you on the boat.
Besides listing seasons, size and bag limits it provides information on any special exclusions to those rules that might pertain.
Although Massachusetts allows the taking of 18.5-inch fluke fish that size are not easy to come by.
One commercial rod and reeler working Vineyard Sound caught more than 150 pounds of fluke and only had four fish over the 18.5-inch size in his catch which consisted of commercial fluke that ranged from the commercial 14-inch minimum to an average of about 16 to 17 inches which suggests that taking a limit of 18.5-inch fluke is not as easy as some might think.
On a beautiful Friday with just a hint of southwest wind, we fished the Vineyard with live bait and didn’t have a single strike. We had a moving tide however not a striper was caught on the south side of the Elizabeth’s while we were there. |
In fact it was one of the very few times that I’ve ever fished this area and did not find a single (not one) other boat fishing from the tip of Cuttyhunk to Tarpaulin Cove.
When I made my calls for the New England fishing report on Saturday afternoon I learned that the fishing from Falmouth to Woods Hole has been extremely slow with the best bite occurring off Gay Head and the deeper waters off Devil’s Bridge.
The Cuttyhunk boats have been fishing Sow and Pigs rip in the late afternoon and early mornings snapping parachutes on wire and accounting for respectable catches of stripers from 34 to 40 inches with a few bruisers in that mix. There are bluefish around but not in the numbers I would expect for this time of the season however depending on the amount of sunshine, a pretty precious commodity lately, the water temperature off Newport and the Buzzards Bay tower is a chilly 62 to 63 degrees at a time when the water temperature is usually in the high 60s or low 70s, so much for Al Gore and his farcical theory of global warming.
The best bet over the next month will be targeting fluke in their deep water lairs, preferably in depths from 48 to 75 feet.
Striper fishing will wane a bit during the day, but anglers who fish after sunset will reap rewards by using live eels and fresh bunker and squid fished on the bottom.
Hopefully, at least for John Viveiros, Joe Latinville and Mike Bucko, our local bait and tackle dealers, the bluefish will show and begin their annual assault on tackle causing the aforementioned proprietors to reduce their inventory of popping plugs and shiny jigs that those choppers just love to attack.
And by the way, the good news is that there is no size limit on blues but there is a bag limit of 10 fish. If you don’t eat them, catch them and put them back gently because if anything happens to our stripers, a distinct possibility, the bluefish will once again become the provisional king of the saltwater fishermen.
Charley Soares writes a weekly column for The Outdoors Page.
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Fish by number
By Charley Soares
GateHouse News Service
She heard me but she didn’t respond. The lady looked down at the handsome fluke then back at me and finally asked if I was kidding. I wish I had been but her fish was 19-inches and a fine specimen at that but in Rhode Island waters fluke (summer flounder) must be 20-inches and her first flounder of the season had to be released. Now ordinarily she is a very understanding and cooperative person, but she had worked for almost an hour before she hooked this fish and was ecstatic when I slipped the net under it.
That was when I removed the fish from the net and measured it before informing her that it was an inch shy of the state’s minimum size. This lady has been catching fluke for decades and has become a very good hand at putting these toothy flounder in the fish box. After pouting for a moment she gave me the nod and I sent the big flounder back to the depths hopefully to grow another inch.
We’ve come a long way from the days when common sense and angler discretion were the deciding factors in determining whether or not to keep fish, but with today’s repressive regulations fishing is becoming a game of numbers and those numbers are not in our favor.
I don’t believe that it was the days of unlimited bag and unrestricted size limits got us into trouble; it was the heavy commercial pressure placed on our inshore species once the offshore fishing crashed. Today despite substantial increases in most of our inshore fisheries we are being harassed by unreasonable lawsuits from the conservations groups who do not even have a stake in these fisheries. So here we are with size limits that are so absurd that it threatens even an honest man to cheat just to bring a single fish home to feed his family.
Two weeks ago a commercial charter boat with a full complement of patrons fished from Point Judith, R.I. to Sakonnet drifting over usually productive bottom and they only caught six fluke over 21-inches which is a disappointment for the fishermen but a death knell for the party and charter boat operators who require a healthy fishery in order for their business’ to stay afloat.
From my observations over a long period of time the summer flounder (fluke) resource is in good condition, yet the legal harassment prevents managers to allow more liberal limits. We have transitioned from the days when the fluke season began in mid May and ran through the summer up to mid or late October to the current situation where the Rhode Island fluke season opened on June 17 and runs through December. While that might sound generous the minimum size is 21-inches and the daily bag limit is six fish.
In Massachusetts, the fluke season opened on July 1st and closes on Aug. 13 with a five fish a day bag limit of flounder 18.5 inches and over. A friend of ours fished off Newport, R.I. last week and caught 27 fluke and did not have a single fish over 21 inches. He had numerous fish in the 17 to 19-inch class with the majority of the fluke in the 18-inch range which is a very good eating size.
I know that I can catch and release fluke all day long with very little mortality however someone who does not use the proper hooks and rips those hooks from the fish is killing a dozen fish for every legal (if they are lucky) fish they fortunate enough to put in their fish box.
Earlier this June, my wife and I were killing time between tides so we began fishing for scup in a place where these pan fish were frequently under the Rhode Island 10.5 inch minimum size. We kept at it and managed to catch a dozen between us, enough to make a few meals and share with the Sakonnet weather lady who has a penchant for broiled scup.
During this encounter my bride caught a handsome 18-inch tog and began making observations about what a great meal it would make. I waited until she was finished making plans for her fish before I gave her the bad news. Her prospective meal exceeded the Rhode Island 16-inch minimum size for tautog however that season was closed during the month of June so our tasty feast was reluctantly released to swim another day.
Without one of the state marine fisheries pamphlets for Rhode Island and Massachusetts a person could get into hot water not to mention paying a fine so I’d recommend picking up a copy of the 2009 regulations and keeping it with you on the boat.
Besides listing seasons, size and bag limits it provides information on any special exclusions to those rules that might pertain.
Although Massachusetts allows the taking of 18.5-inch fluke fish that size are not easy to come by.
One commercial rod and reeler working Vineyard Sound caught more than 150 pounds of fluke and only had four fish over the 18.5-inch size in his catch which consisted of commercial fluke that ranged from the commercial 14-inch minimum to an average of about 16 to 17 inches which suggests that taking a limit of 18.5-inch fluke is not as easy as some might think.
On a beautiful Friday with just a hint of southwest wind, we fished the Vineyard with live bait and didn’t have a single strike. We had a moving tide however not a striper was caught on the south side of the Elizabeth’s while we were there. |
In fact it was one of the very few times that I’ve ever fished this area and did not find a single (not one) other boat fishing from the tip of Cuttyhunk to Tarpaulin Cove.
When I made my calls for the New England fishing report on Saturday afternoon I learned that the fishing from Falmouth to Woods Hole has been extremely slow with the best bite occurring off Gay Head and the deeper waters off Devil’s Bridge.
The Cuttyhunk boats have been fishing Sow and Pigs rip in the late afternoon and early mornings snapping parachutes on wire and accounting for respectable catches of stripers from 34 to 40 inches with a few bruisers in that mix. There are bluefish around but not in the numbers I would expect for this time of the season however depending on the amount of sunshine, a pretty precious commodity lately, the water temperature off Newport and the Buzzards Bay tower is a chilly 62 to 63 degrees at a time when the water temperature is usually in the high 60s or low 70s, so much for Al Gore and his farcical theory of global warming.
The best bet over the next month will be targeting fluke in their deep water lairs, preferably in depths from 48 to 75 feet.
Striper fishing will wane a bit during the day, but anglers who fish after sunset will reap rewards by using live eels and fresh bunker and squid fished on the bottom.
Hopefully, at least for John Viveiros, Joe Latinville and Mike Bucko, our local bait and tackle dealers, the bluefish will show and begin their annual assault on tackle causing the aforementioned proprietors to reduce their inventory of popping plugs and shiny jigs that those choppers just love to attack.
And by the way, the good news is that there is no size limit on blues but there is a bag limit of 10 fish. If you don’t eat them, catch them and put them back gently because if anything happens to our stripers, a distinct possibility, the bluefish will once again become the provisional king of the saltwater fishermen.
Charley Soares writes a weekly column for The Outdoors Page.