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I have not always agreed with everything Zach Harvey writes about but that Fluke article was right on. I am a fluke guy and have enjoyed fishing that species in 5 states since the age of 3, in bays and offshore. It is probably one of the most popular species fished for in the east...and it is not just fluke that get abused like this. IMO NOTHING should be wasted or dumped over the side dead...EVER for ANY reason. If you drag just about anything you pull up will be near dead or die soon after. The discard because of regulations is a very significant mortality number that is being ignored. It should come to market and come off the quota...after all they are dead. Same goes for bass and everything else that swims. Remember the herring draggers catching and dumping bass offshore? This should never happen.
He didn't mention this but IMO the reason they don't do this is that there other factions of the comm industry would be pissed off. Ie. the R&R anglers don't want to see the quota lowered (or even reduced to zero) by draggers retained discard and put them out of work. IMO this is the real hidden issue that they don't want to discuss in the open.
As a recreational angler I actually try very hard not to waste any fish or part of fish. If it is not released, it is kept for food. We don't keep more then we can eat. After cleaning, all the fish waste also gets used as bait for lobster traps or ground up for chum. Nothing (OK, very very little) goes into the dumpster.
Its almost like a slap in the rec anglers face to see deckhands shoveling discard overboard when the rec angler is taking the time to revive a fish and see that he swims off strong.
He made some good points about rec regs as well. But the bottom line is that our fisheries management system is just not working and lacks common sense.
As Ted Nugent tell his kids on his hunting show..."If you kill it, the least you can do is Eat it!"
I am glad they made that a cover story...
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