Comment by M Hawkins on 0648-AV41

My website, written in late 2002 after 23 years in the business, has not one mention of summer flounder. Not a peep. Yet in the last few years we've spent more and more time targeting them; close to 100 days in '07. And doing that in precisely ~exactly~ the same places that I would be normally be targeting sea bass. It wasn't a mistake. I didn't forget years spent fluking. We never had the fishery before '05.... Regulators need to back-off and switch focus to the many species that seriously need management's attention. All the brouhaha surrounding flounder is, in my opinion, wasted energy. The rebuilding plan worked. Put it in auto-pilot and check the radar for new targets.. The NMFS recognizes that there 'might' be a southern stock of scup (porgy). I have heard many accounts and seen the pictures of these fish being caught off Maryland's coast - all before my time. I'd wager scup made up 1/2 of the recreational bottom fishing landings from the 40s through mid 60's ~ 1969 was about the last of it. Of late we are seeing a few juveniles using the shallow water artificial reefs in high summer, and perhaps more south-bound migrants into late fall. Wonder what we could do with a targeted management strategy. Speaking of southern stocks, here's an odd coincidence: According to their website, in 1991 the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council -MAFMC- "Limited the activity of directed foreign fishing and joint venture transfers to foreign vessels." Not to be bitter or anything, I mean I understand sometimes it's hard to get a sentence to say just what you mean; but that year they actually allowed unlimited mackerel processing on foreign ships. And, from that year to this, severely limited -crushed- the recreational mackerel fishery in this region. Certainly the #1 party-boat fish by landings here in the 80's; in 1998 I wrote that the red hake (ling) were declining so rapidly that soon the closest one might be at the Smithsonian in DC. Hope they have a couple specimens ~ we sure don't. But we've got enough flounder to force a change in the region's reef life. It may be that the management plan has been too successful. I've picked the memories of many that fished off OC even before WWII; captains and mates that reported marlin commonly caught within sight of land. They never had this flounder fishery. Make a final regulation. Set a reasonable day's catch and size limit then leave it be. Call the battle won. There's far more serious fishery restoration work to be done. Maybe even some habitat work ~ There's a lot of natural hard-bottom coral reef in the mid-Atlantic. It's yet to have any light shone on it: this despite numerous EFH regulations. Regards, Monty Hawkins