With the Fall run of the flounder fishing season ebbing, the fishing pressure on these popular flatfish is intensifying with anglers spending their time trying to fill their larders with as many of the tasty filets that they can legally catch. But with the new Texas limit’s the flounder anglers may have to fish twice as hard to catch fewer fish.
Probably one of the most sought after food fish for Texas saltwater anglers is the Flounder. A medium sized flatfish with unusual features of having both eyes on one side of its head and a body that provides four filets at the cleaning table. But its main attraction is definitely its delectable flavor when served at the supper table. Whether fried or grilled, the flounder holds its own at the top of the menu for fish eaters.
Previous studies by Texas Parks & Wildlife on flounder populations in Texas Bays and waters found the popular flatfish count down by at least 50 percent. Alarmed, the TP&W Dept; moved to protect the species with special Fall regulations. Banning all flounder gigging during the month of November and reducing the previous flounder limits of 14 inches minimum with a 10 per day creel cut to 5 fish for September thru October limit, and then further cut to a two flounder for November when the larger brood age females were expected to migrate from the bays to the Gulf to spawn. This is when they are extremely vulnerable to commercial and sport gigging as well as the sport-anglers.
Dedicated flounder anglers give the flatfish an almost occult status, with some flounder anglers fishing for nothing else, spending their entire free-time angling for the flatfish when they are running. Probably no other species of fish that swim in Texas waters enjoy such popularity from the inshore coastal anglers. I personally know several people that fish for flounder around the clock during there annual Fall runs.
How will these new limits affect their flounder fishing habits and attitudes? The following are a few remarks and possible solutions.
A Tyler TX, couple stated “We usually fish the Coast Guard station area on Galveston Island and we feel that the new limits stink and think that they (TP&W) should’ve handled the problem with a much better solution. Maybe by implementing slot limits with five fish allowed from 14inches to 18inches, and releasing the smaller males and larger brood fish. In this way the larger female flounder and smaller males could continue into the Gulf for spawning and we could have our 5 fish per day creel. It’s hard to deal with the expenses of that long trip from Tyler for only 2 flounder a day, especially with the economy like it is now. Don’t get us wrong, we are for protecting the species, but we just think it could’ve been handled in a more positive way.
The strict fishing rules and regulations that Texas has enforced on their Flounder this year, complained an angler from Arkansas, just plain stinks. We’ve been coming to the Texas coast ever year since 1979 for just the flounder runs. We’ve seen the limits drop drastically over the years from no limits to just 2 flounder a day now. I don’t think we’ll come back to Texas for our annual flounder fishing trips anymore. We’ll probably head to the Louisiana coast instead.
An angler from High Island, just 8 miles up the road from Rollover Pass, fretted after catching his 2 fish limit in only 20 minutes, and hardly felt it was worth the drive. He was against the new limits and felt that he was being punished for someone else’s ill deeds.
We feel, stated a couple from Oklahoma, that they (TP&W) should have just stopped the flounder gigging for this Fall and allowed the 5 fish per day limits for the sport anglers. By prohibiting the gigging of flounder we feel that enough of the females would’ve been spared for the spawn and by cutting the 10 flounder limit to 5 should’ve been enough to help as well. As it is now, the anglers fishing the Fall run are being tempted to break the law by keeping more than allowed by law.
Unfortunately, they’ve witnessed that very thing with “normally” law abiding anglers turning poacher to fill their boxes with flounder. What some anglers are doing after catching their 2 fish limit they either head back to their temporary lodgings, or RV Sites, quickly clean their catches, then returning to their fishing spots to catch more flounder -or- calling friends via cell-phone to pick up their fish coolers to replace them empty coolers so they can continue to fish. In this way they are able to catch multiple limits of flounder while fishing 24 hours a day. And still some anglers are actually selling their catches to the fish markets and restaurants who buy them with no questions asked.
It’s an economy thing, stated a local business person; we depend on the Fall flounder run to fill our business tills, which sees us through the winter before the spring fish runs start back up in April. Whether you run a gas station, bait shop, motel, grocery store, or restaurant, if we have a bad season we’ll feel a negative income that will have a ripple effect all the way down to the minimum wage worker. A poor season will put people out of work when the income from these visiting anglers becomes scarce. So we hope and pray that whatever the TP&W commission does to improve the fishery that it doesn’t backfire on our economy. After all, we, as a community, rely on the visiting tourists for our very existence.
Being not a flounder fanatic, this writer/angler spends his time fishing for the “other” important species such as redfish and speckled trout. But I realize the importance of conservation and have seen first hand its positive effects on our sport fishery. With the reds and specks coming back strong via the TP&W conservation programs I feel that if the “flounder-pounders” just give this flounder regeneration program a fair chance to recover that those flatfish will return in the numbers we enjoyed just 5 years ago. But those no-limit days of yore will become a thing of the past. Limits are important for many reasons, and those lawful anglers turned poacher need to rethink their ill gotten gains.By: Ed Snyder / Ed Snyder Outdoors
