Nice fish there Capt! What's your take on the lack of fluke entering the Peconic system. It's beginning to look like last year when fluke catches were great in Montauk and along the entire south shore for that matter. And the Peconic and sound have been pretty barren? It almost seems like the fluke are passing us right by. Buy why? I know it's too early to tell, but I've been seeing this same pattern in the sound for 3-4 years now, with each year getting tougher.
Plenty of bait, but little action on both fluke and birds. If you're not fishing porgies or striped bass you're just not catching.
Like we have all speculated for some time now, reductions this dramatic are usually the result of many factors. Most of us have noted changes in water temperature, more pollution, increases in species that may be consuming Fluke fry as part of their diet. What about changes in salinity or pH? Has anybody studied this seriously or long enough to make any reasonable predictions?
For a while many of us thought it was a lack of bait. I do recall back in the early to mid 80"s there was so much squid in the Peconic Bay system that the Prime Time would actually run night Squid Trips for the customer s to load up both for bait and human consumption purposes. That hasn't happened in decades. This year myself and many others have noted a pretty large uptick in the amount of squid we are marking on our machines plus seeing some of the Fluke spit up. And still the early bite has been slow. It looks like it may have picked up a bit these last few days with the warm spell but it could also be an anomaly. I hope not as I have several local Fluke trips booked in the coming weeks.
Several have commented that the overall Biomass is depressed. I kind of feel there is a lot of truth to that belief. Although we had a good Fluke season off Montauk last summer it was not as strong as the 2-4 years prior to that. Plus the steady bite didn't really take off there until mid July about 2 weeks later than usual. And heaven knows what has happened to the Gardiners' Island bite that used to be so steady from mid June through late July. That fishery has been all but dead for at least the past 3 years.
I know a lot of folks would like to take the easy route and just blame the commercials. I also know, as you have stated, that the daily quotas, at least for NY vessels, is pretty small. However, I do not know what the limits are for other vessels form adjacent states and those who target the species on the continental shelf over the winter.
So, yes it is complex problem and I sure hope we can figure it out while there are still enough Fluke around to rebuild the stock throughout our region.
