ARA WEEK 4 NC FLOUNDER 101

Steve Brewster
[e-mail]
[phone]
Wildlife Federation Save our Sounds
oneclickpoliti...
The saga of southern flounder continues in NC. The public is beginning to wake up and start to get involved with what is happening in their state! Our goals of a better fishing future for all the people of North Carolina are starting to take shape and we absolutely have to keep up the pressure until this is resolved.
NC COMMERCIAL LANDINGS
www.deq.nc.gov...
Southern Flounder FMP
www.deq.nc.gov...
Coast Wide Assessment
www.deq.nc.gov...
I have the document from SC for anyone who wants to review that I can send it to you if you shoot me an e-mail.

[@greggjohnson3049]

Well done again! You showed us some stats and charts that should be eye opening to the general public and our state legislature. Keep up the hard work you are doing.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Send those emails! Tell your friends to do the same. We have to stay on them until we get some changes or the legislature will just drop it. The politicians always prefer to do nothing. This is going to require them to spend a ton of time at work.

[@pistol777]

Came over as requested by Coastal Carolina Living. Totally agree with your video.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Thanks for coming

[@saltwaterdawgoutdoors2190]

I agree 100% with your closing points especially consolidate control with Wildlife Resources and getting trawlers out of the sounds and the ICW as well.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Send some emails to your legislators and ask your friends and family to do the same. We can turn this around, but the people have to speak up.

[@JohnFlora1]

My family has always planned a week-long trip to the NC coast to flounder fish in the surf in September or early October. The fishing has gotten progressively worse each year. Smaller fish and fewer. Now the regulations have completely eliminated the possibility. This year we will be going to SC for the first time. I am a life-long North Carolinian, and something’s got to change!

[@paulmoss7940]

I just got back from Watchapregue Va. 64 yo NC native. Also going to SC in fall.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Help us let our legislators know they have to change this now. Email and call your representatives and make sure they know what's really going on. Most are clueless and let the coastal reps decide but the coastal reps are all paid off.

[@jackscott6551]

any good areas in sc you can recomend

[@paulmoss7940]

@@jackscott6551 I fish from the NC border all the way down to Georgetown, bypassing Myrtle beach .

[@JesseKlaus]

If they're this worried about southern flounder why aren't we creating restocking programs - funded, at least in part, by commercial and recreational fishing?

[@FishingwithBrewski]

I asked the exact same question years ago. Stocking programs don't really yield enough fish to close the gap. We can't kill a million as bycatch and put 40-50,000 back and say we did a good thing. Flounder are also a very weird species to start a hatchery for because of their weird biology. It's also wildly expensive, from what I was told. Like 10s of millions to start one, and then it has to be maintained. Hatcheries seem like the last ditch effort for a collapsing stock, and we're not that far yet.

[@thomasipock1130]

@@FishingwithBrewski , actually it's not that hard and NC State University has a flounder hatchery which my father and I toured back in the late 90's. My dad was looking at going into aquaculture and starting up a flounder hatchery at our farm. Initial start up investment at that time was approximately $1,000,000. High initial cost yes but the success of hatchery raised Striper has been phenomenal and according to a Wildlife Biologist I fish with almost 90% of the Striper in our river system have come from those hatchery raised fish. Other states have implemented flounder hatchery's to supplement their wild stocks and have had great success with doing so. Sadly we're about 30 years behind the ball on this but the research has been done at N.C. State and the ability to do it is there. Why haven't we done it you ask? I think you know who controls the NCDMF brother.

[@NcSojourner]

Thank you for your time spent, efforts, & growing knowledge... Please start the videos regarding all the ILLEGALS ( coming across the border) and their complete disregard for resources and laws... And the officer's leaving them alone.... Nonstop everywhere I travel... there will be a devastating impact shortly all across Northern America ,fish & game....

[@FishingwithBrewski]

There will always be people who ignore the law, and while I have already seen what you're talking about, I wouldn't have any idea what a fix action would be other than making fines higher and putting up signs in multiple languages at spots that are visited frequently. Most folks from other countries that I run into are always bank fishing.

[@kevinbriggs2611]

So informative! Thanks so much! You have the documentation to support the feelings of most recreational fishermen. I was surprised to see that recreational fishermen generate over 13 times the revenue for the state. I cannot agree more....trawl boats do not need to be in our sounds!

[@FishingwithBrewski]

We generated 13 times the revenue with only 1/10th of the fish. This means the value per pound of recreatinally harvested fish is about 100 times higher. My primary concern isn't to get recs a fair cut, though. The main concern is making sure my kids still have fish when they're my age. At this rate, it's not looking good.

[@rbmclamb]

Appreciate you getting this ball rolling

[@FishingwithBrewski]

My pleasure. It means nothing if the people don't start to act on it. The opposition is well funded and very organized. The only way we fix this is for a massive amount of people to reach out to their legislators and not stop reaching out until changes are made. www.ncleg.gov/findyourlegislators

[@billybell5286]

Thank you brother. I'm here for it.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Tell your legislators. Google "NC find your legislators" then type in your address, and it will tell you who your reps are and give their phone numbers and emails. Don't bother with the federal reps. Just the state house and state senate.

[@jonathanwalsh9668]

Thankyou for this video. Very educational and I will be following to learn more.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Please reach out to your legislators as well and pass the action items along. You can just Google "NC find your legislators" and enter your address. You'll have one rep for the house and one for the state senate that need to be contacted. Don't bother with the federal rep as they don't make these decisions. I've found that I get better results with phone calls than email, but I just set a phone reminder to contact them once a week via one form or another. The wildlife federation emails are good to send as well since their system has an accounting tool that can show total number of people who have reached out. Thank you!

[@brenthayes8467]

I'm sure you have the actual number, but I suspect that, much like NC hunters, the number of people participating in recreational fishing has declined. If I'm correct, that would mean that the commercial sector has not only decimated the stocks , but are doing so at an increasing ratio. I think the blue fish decline is clear evidence of this.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Rec fishing has actually exploded since the pandemic. I see roughly 3 times the number of people on the water these days by comparison to just 5 years ago. Bluefish is actually recovering with the cutbacks as well. NOAA just took them off the overfishing list earlier this year. There are a lot less comm fishermen than there used to be. Most will point at regulations as the cause but it's very difficult to make a living doing it these days because the stocks are just way down. The vast majority of people that I know who comm fish just do it as a side gig. I think average income is somewhere around 25,000 year.

[@auggyboy284]

Super great information. Keep up the fight!

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Send those emails! Then send some more! I'm gonna call and email at least once a week until we get some changes.

[@greggoryflythe5604]

Thanks for sharing this information. Something differently needs to be done.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Make sure you're calling and emailing your legislators and letting them know that NC needs to change. If we move together, we can turn this around.

[@patrickhorney2763]

Thank you for this video, absolutely agree with you.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Send some emails and then send some more next week and the week after that! We have to let Raleigh know we're not going to just roll over this time!

[@Captain_Kdawg]

That’s a good point. The people that have commercial license that actually don’t sell the fish commercially.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

I know several guys who do this. I feel bad about messing with what they've always been allowed to do, but it's just not right. Those landings should, at the very least, be counted against the commercial quota, but they're not.

[@johnmorganjr769]

FISH EYE LENS : ' We need clean, undisturbed areas to make babies', 'If you'll enforce that three mile rule, things will take off'. 'das money yall.....🐟

[@johnmorganjr769]

Employ rotating inspectors at dock sites, landing areas. Clean it up, or loose it all. I have to pinch myself sometime....'So, when we go to the coast, it is ILLEGAL to 'hook and line' catch a flounder !! 😯.

[@georgeniebergall7074]

This channel on I just tuned into this channel. Here’s the facts last year. I followed Chihuahua. It was a 1 mile long slick of dead fish floating on top of the water. All juvenile fluke that got caught in the net just wasted then again take it into consideration that everything is regulated by people on bleach fishing boats, I don’t know what to say anymore because I said

[@coastalcarolinaliving]

There is stock mixing of flounder, though. NC is still the biggest culript in those charts for harvest. NC reduction helps the whole southeast. Half the boats I see on the water in SC are NC boats 😂😂. At the end of the day, they need to end commercial fisheries, no one wants to say it. There is a reason we don't have a commercial harvest of game animals anymore.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

That is very likely the sad truth at the end of the day. It took us wiping out most of the land animals before commercial hunting was banned. There has been some good recovery since then, but it's still not back to what it could be. There are a few species that are primarily commercial harvest only, and their stocks are having issues as well.

[@coastalcarolinaliving]

@FishingwithBrewski yeah it's a bad situation. If only we had learned our lessons with commercial hunting. I shared your video on our page. You do a great job and need to continue to educate more people on the matter. Thanks

[@Ken-xm1rf]

Scientists also said that cod could never be over fished due to the number of eggs they lay. Well, how'd that turn out.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

That's gotta be one of the most epic fails we've ever pulled in fisheries management. At its peak, Northern Cod harvest hit 810,000 tons!!! That fishery has been closed for, I think, 25 years now?

[@jimrichards9072]

Simply stop the haul netters . I have worked on shrimp boats , a lot of my family are commercial fishermen but with the advent of modern electronics and knowledge they have cleaned up the sound including oysters . So, the end result is going to be some sort of a way for the commercial fishing license holders are allowed to hold those licenses for ten years at that point the state or individual may buy the license. Or we will replenish the sound and then they are allowed to go back to fishing . It’s thier choice

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Are long haul seines still used in NC? I honestly thought that had died out 20 years ago. I know they hammered the baby fish and packed em as crab bait or boiled them down for oil, cat food etc but there's not a significant bycatch allowance for the unmarketable fish that I'm aware of. It's a shame with the oysters. 90% of all of them are gone now but farming them is a great way for our watermen to transition to a business that can go on forever. I like your suggestion for the licenses.

[@jimrichards9072]

I agree with what u are saying. Elaborate a bit more on this subject .

[@FishingwithBrewski]

😄. I try to be brief, but it's very difficult for me not to give details because I feel like they're important.

[@jennasee6400]

Can we catch fish in South Carolina and take to North Carolina? If I buy South Carolina license

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Technically, if you are found in possession of a flounder in NC it will be illegal.

[@jennasee6400]

@@FishingwithBrewski not really the world is turn outside down, no human can’t control Father creation.

[@jennasee6400]

@@FishingwithBrewski we human are getting so weak about creating. All about money and not worrying about life. Because money all this happen.

[@jimrichards9072]

What about the other species of flounder besides southern flounder ?

[@FishingwithBrewski]

If we included summer flounder landings, the commercial take would be somewhere around 99.9% of all flounder today. The trawls land 35,000 lb/day during their season. It's kind of different though and not a totally fair comparison since they're not getting those flounder from NC. They all come from up North.

[@thomasipock1130]

@@FishingwithBrewski , Steven lots of those Summer Flounder do come from NC just in Federal Waters open to the offshore trawl fishery. This fishery opened April 1st and doesn't even close until August 31st, and yes alot of our Southern Flounder are also caught during this season as well.

[@Glaciershark]

it works for the commercial fisherman. It works fine your just mad you caught over your qouta.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Do you think regular commercial guys are happy about this situation? They're getting a larger portion, sure, but it's nothing compared to what they would be getting if we'd set the proper harvest limits 20 years ago.

[@jmdog37]

Agreed look at the lies on rockfish

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Not sure what you mean. 🤔

[@michaelenglish8004]

The last podcast I listened from you you stressed it wasn't against commercial vs recreational and we were in the same boat.. IMO leave the f...n one week fisherman on vacation alone..

[@FishingwithBrewski]

It's not. What caused this to happen was the fish house owners. The guys at the top who paid off politicians and stacked the deck on the MFC to keep their profits high. The regular commercial folks just did what the regulations allowed them to do. The system has failed them as well. We are absolutely in the same boat in the big picture. Nobody can catch anything if they don't recover. The problem with that is that people should feel like there is some sort of equitable split and if they don't, they're a lot more likely to break the law and just take what they can get.

[@kennethbroadwell653]

“License Reform”. As you already know, I am one of the commercial license holders that does not sell fish. People like myself bought these licenses legally and we have adhered to the laws and rules. I suspect the reason most others, like myself, have gigged many years and due the the DMF/MFC setting unfair recreational creel limits, while allowing commercial unlimited limits, was in our opinion unfair, so we decided to join their ranks. But “this is not a fight between recreational and commercial”. Amend 3 pert near ended my gigging as the DMF set a quota season during peak tropical weather systems, northerly blows and king tides. 2023 three trips, 3 flounder, $2000 in expenses. I am debating now whether to renew my license. You are coming after me. A 68 year old retired, law abiding, tax paying citizen.

[@FishingwithBrewski]

@kennethbroadwell653 I'm not saying you've done a single thing wrong, but we need to have some sort of sense of fairness or people are just going to be breaking the law and keeping them anyway because they feel robbed. I know a lot of folks that have very expensive gig setups and can't use them at all or use them to catch one flounder. I'd be happy to support a bill that pays you back for your license cost if that helps, but we just can't have one group of people held above everyone else because they got a comm license. It's one thing if that's how you make a living, but for those who aren't even selling the fish, that's just a rec with insane privileges. I'm sorry you feel attacked by me saying that, but if the fish belong to everybody, then the rules and restrictions should apply equally.

[@michaelenglish8004]

​@@FishingwithBrewskiThanks for staying on top of this subject and our N.C. fishery.

[@kennethbroadwell653]

@@FishingwithBrewski well you did and you continue to. People like myself are not putting a dent on the flounder. Pound nets do. We are just part time and those fish cost us way more than if we chose to buy them. We put alot of money in the economy also. Just ask my wife. A flounder now costs me about $200/lb. Here is a secret. I gig for the fun of it. The meat is the bonus. Last year’s recreational season…I could not find anyone willing to go with me for one fish. I sense some jealousy here as the real reason. But I agree with your other two proposed changes.

[@zachb5803]

We need Mark Robinson for Governor

[@FishingwithBrewski]

Mark won't respond to me at all, actually. I've already received a few threats from some in the commercial community about what he's going to do if appointed Governor. I have no way of knowing the real truth of this since he won't respond to me, but I'm definitely a bit nervous. I think we'll make him the primary focus of this week's action item and see if we can getvsome answer. This definitely doesn't have to be a party related issue, but recent history shows the Democrats are the ones supporting the requests of the recreational sector a bit more than the Republicans.

[@jeffmcbane3638]

wrong...he will be an NCFA puppet for sure

[@alltree78]

Its disgusting

[@georgeniebergall7074]

Tell me idea OK no commercial netting within 5 miles of any beach OK to see the fish can get into a sanctuary so to speak the commercial Fishman will never out fish or wipeout the population of this question only allowed 30 poor fish person come on now commercial government hundreds of thousands of them commercial fishing must be stopped within 5 miles of any beach in any state

[@FishingwithBrewski]

NC would be overjoyed just to get the trawls out of our sounds.

[@georgeniebergall7074]

@@FishingwithBrewski 5 miles from any shore or any beach end of story all the money being wasted you could pay the troll is not to go out for two years the entire population would be replenished

[@FishingwithBrewski]

@georgeniebergall7074 it would definitely go a long way. I have no doubt that some of the populations would explode within a few years, but we do have to also accept the fact that hook and line fishing pressure can do a lot of damage as well and limits need to be set on everyone.

[@georgeniebergall7074]

Listen, I write this to you because of my experience of following a troller back on my way back from fishing out in the mud hole in New Jersey. There was a 1 mile long slick of dead fluke by catch because they were too small so God knows how many we’re just thrown away. It’s it’s such a sin, this needs to be addressed now this is what you should be pushing

[@FishingwithBrewski]

@@georgeniebergall7074 that is todays video!