The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries declared on May 23, 2024 that the state will not have a recreational season for flounder in 2024. The reason for the closure is due to overages from previous flounder seasons.
The DMF has not issued a press release on this yet, but sources that attended the agency’s meeting in Beaufort, NC have relayed the ruling to us.
The matter of flounder season did not come to a vote. Instead, the overages from last year (or the past several years) were noted as the reason for the continued closure. As part of the state’s most recent flounder regulations over the past few years, future seasons could be shortened or even canceled if one recreational season resulted in more flounder being caught than the Total Allowable Catch, a number set by DMF before each season.
For instance, during North Carolina’s 2022 recreational flounder season, DMF had set the Total Allowable Catch at 170,655 pounds. The estimated recreational catch for that season was 226,995 pounds, an overage of 56,340 pounds.
The 2023 season also resulted in an overage, which was added to the previous year’s. DMF determined that these overages have cut into what 2024’s Total Allowable Catch would have been, so severely, that they determined it was best to cancel any plans for a 2024 recreational harvest season.
We expect to see an official release from NCDMF soon, and we will update our readers accordingly.
Why am i missing the reduction for the commercial guys?
So it’s only in NC there is a problem with flounder? SC and Virginia have no flounder issues, year long seasons. Generous bag limits. But you’re really trying to sell this pile of poo to us??? Seriously??
We aren’t selling anything. Your beef is with NCDMF, not us.
At what point does the public (recreational fishermen) stand up to this political commission. Guess I’ll just do my fishing and spend my money in South Carolina.
What a crock of poo , you can go North or South and catch em , the overages just proves they’re are plenty , the season is so short . I barely believe that’s real numbers .
Guess we have to be the mid Atlantic estuary for the rest of the coast .
How do we remove the present NCDMF members. It’s absurd to think NC alone is going to fix the flounder/grouper numbers on the east coast. Either work with our neighboring states or admit the present members care less about recreational fishing. I’ve personally seen commercial boats scoop up whole schools of both bluefish and strippers at Hatteras. I’ve looked at the angry recreational guys who had spent hundreds of dollars with lodging, restaurants gear ect to catch two or three fish a day. You tell me the the sell of that commercial catch was an economical good idea for Hatteras.
Let’s figure out who the NCDMF is really working for.