Fall Flounder

[Boston83]

Hi just looking for some advice (not actual spots). I fish out of Boston harbor. Went out the other day with no luck. Just trying to figure where I should be targeting. Inside the harbor or outside for fall floundering.? They come in just as if they were spring time ? 

[jason colby]

1 hour ago, Boston83 said:

Hi just looking for some advice (not actual spots). I fish out of Boston harbor. Went out the other day with no luck. Just trying to figure where I should be targeting. Inside the harbor or outside for fall floundering.? They come in just as if they were spring time ? 

When the flounder population was healthy, there was a fall run. Back in the late 80's the population fell off to a point when by 1993 there was no point in fishing for them any more mostly due to the CHLORINE BLEACH that the state poured into the harbor to sterilize it before bringing the Deer Island Treatment Plant online. That all went well and in the late 1990's the flounder started coming back. The water was clean and the natural forage was rebuilding (sea worms and clams). For the next 15 years the flounder fishing was getting better and better each year while the draggers took little interest as they were very busy wiping the cod off the map. Then, in 2012 there was a Gulf of Maine stock assessment that showed that the cod biomass was "4% of healthy". So, for 2013 they gave the draggers a 77% decrease in cod quota and the state of Massachusetts doubled the flounder quota (Thank you Paul Diodoti!).

One state fishery panel member (Chuck Casella, not that I would mentioned names) said he would vote on that increase "no matter what" because the poor draggers needed something to work on"!

From there it was downhill all the way with the flounder populations in the bays, harbors and estuaries of eastern Massachusetts. In the few years just before the commercial increase, we were starting to see a fall run but that instantly evaporated in 2013...

 

Captain Jason Colby

Little Sister Charters

[Boston83]

Thank you Jason for all the info/backstory very insightful. Appreciate it. I guess I’ll go back to chasing stripers. Wanted to go for something else or take a break. Since my striper #s have been dramatically down compared to last year. 

[jason colby]

3 hours ago, Boston83 said:

Thank you Jason for all the info/backstory very insightful. Appreciate it. I guess I’ll go back to chasing stripers. Wanted to go for something else or take a break. Since my striper #s have been dramatically down compared to last year. 

All this "crazy talk" by managers and regulators about how many stripers the rec anglers are killing would not be worthy of a mention if they didn't throw everything out of balance with their insane policies towards the commercial sector. Rec anglers fishing Boston Harbor and many other areas can't reasonably fish for anything but stripers as the cod, the haddock, the fluke, the weakfish and the (you name it) , in other words "all/almost all the other alternatives" have been commercially depleted. They are very quick to enact a one fish or no fish policy on rec anglers but they allow the nets to keep working.

The latest example was just last month they shut down cod fishing for rec anglers south of The Cape when it had just opened on August 1st. I had been fishing out on Coxes Ledge and the area where the cod are is covered in gill nets and surrounded by draggers. During that shutdown for the recs, the netters just kept fishing! What "conservation measures" were they hoping to accomplish there?

[jason colby]

BTW- The "fall spots" are the same as the "spring spots", DIF, Hosp Shoals, Portagee Cove, etc...

[Boston83]

9 mins ago, jason colby said:

BTW- The "fall spots" are the same as the "spring spots", DIF, Hosp Shoals, Portagee Cove, etc...

Cool, thank you Jason. Also, I enjoyed reading your posts above very enlightening. If you have any more insight I’m all ears. I’m a member of “PISC” tho we are a fishing group. We are all about fishery conservation and helping our local communities + much more. We have guest speakers at our monthly meetings (Salisbury). Its a great way to meet others and learn about our fishery community. 

[Two Rock]

Jason knows and speaks the truth, there is understandably a lot of talk on this website about striped bass mismanagement, but IMO the groundfish tragedy is much much worse, especially the winter flounder story.  

[jason colby]

16 hours ago, Two Rock said:

Jason knows and speaks the truth, there is understandably a lot of talk on this website about striped bass mismanagement, but IMO the groundfish tragedy is much much worse, especially the winter flounder story.  

The "final nail in the coffin" for Boston Harbor flounder was Dan McKiernon getting into office two years, 8 months and almost 3 weeks ago (not that I'm keeping track). One of his first actions as DMF Director of Massachusetts was he gave the draggers "unlimited haddock" in state waters. Well, by now most of you know what the state of the once numerous haddock populations are like in just a few seasons of THAT. What many don't realize is that with all that bottom scraping, very few of the remaining flounder were able to survive as well.

Thank you DAN! You made the draggers very happy...

Edited Wednesday at 05:01 PM by jason colby

[Jighead75]

Amen

[Gloucester2]

On 9/20/2023 at 1:00 PM, jason colby said:

The "final nail in the coffin" for Boston Harbor flounder was Dan McKiernon getting into office two years, 8 months and almost 3 weeks ago (not that I'm keeping track). One of his first actions as DMF Director of Massachusetts was he gave the draggers "unlimited haddock" in state waters. Well, by now most of you know what the state of the once numerous haddock populations are like in just a few seasons of THAT. What many don't realize is that with all that bottom scraping, very few of the remaining flounder were able to survive as well.

Thank you DAN! You made the draggers very happy...

Not to mention the Codfather and I’m sure many other crooks, used that “unlimited “ quota to hide countless loads of regulated cod, sole and other species.       Rape of the ocean - the scope of which we will never know - cause the records are non existent.   

Edited Saturday at 10:28 PM by Gloucester2

[jason colby]

11 hours ago, Gloucester2 said:

Not to mention the Codfather and I’m sure many other crooks, used that “unlimited “ quota to hide countless loads of regulated cod, sole and other species.       Rape of the ocean - the scope of which we will never know - cause the records are non existent.   

1. At a meeting I had with Mike Armstrong on 07/25/2022 (that Dan McKiernon was "supposed to be at" but he didn't show) I asked him what percentage of State Draggers have observers aboard for what percentage of trips. He said "Very close to ZERO percent, BUT they must take one any time we ask". I wanted to know why and he said it would do no good anyway because with an observer aboard so rarely, they simply throw that trip away and fish as clean an area as they can, thus skewing the data....

2. A state biologist I had aboard over the summer told me that there "was" a requirement to check all dragger loads of fish BEFORE they were offloaded. The industry, in general (the draggers, owners and processors) fought that so hard they won! I wonder why they don't want observers and accountability????

3. A former federal fishery observer who fishes on my boat quite regularly told me "horror stories" about what he has seen. Worse, they (dragger captains and Carlos Rafael himself) say that "the fishing would be a lot better if the observer was not on the boat". Basically flaunting how they would cheat when not being watched.