Evaluating the Potential for a Sex‐Balanced Harvest Approach in the Recreational Summer Flounder Fishery

Abstract

Summer Flounder Paralichthys dentatus support important recreational and commercial fisheries along the northeast and mid‐Atlantic coasts of the USA. In the recreational sector, management efforts to constrain harvest below the maximum allowable catch have typically involved increasing the minimum landing size; however, females grow faster than males. Thus, reliance on increased minimum size limits as a management strategy has resulted in approximately 90% of the recent recreational landings being large, female fish. We evaluated the potential for slot limits to produce a sex‐balanced harvest in the recreational Summer Flounder fishery. To estimate the size‐ and sex‐specific vulnerability, we sampled the landed and discarded fish (n = 3,290) caught by recreational anglers on select party boats from New Jersey to Rhode Island during the 2016 recreational fishing season. We then examined the performance of a wide array of slot limits to estimate which would have promoted a more sex‐balanced harvest while maintaining a fixed fishing mortality given the observed catch composition. We demonstrate that slot limits applied to the recreational Summer Flounder fishery have the potential to simultaneously meet multiple management objectives, including the conservation of female biomass while maintaining a fixed fishing mortality; however, no single slot limit performed best at all sampling locations. Results should therefore be viewed as optimal given the observed catch composition for the year, fishing mode, and locations that were observed, and further evaluation of interannual, spatial, and fishing mode variability is warranted. Received March 17, 2017; accepted July 26, 2017Published online October 20, 2017

Evaluating Summer Flounder Spatial Sex‐Segregation in a Southern New England Estuary

“…Given that previous results suggest females make up a larger proportion of the recreational catch at a given depth in the mid‐Atlantic region (Morson et al. ), it is possible that the skewed sex ratios observed here may be less extreme than in other inshore areas to the south. Further, the scarcity of large males implies that these older individuals may stay farther offshore, as has been hypothesized in past work (Morson et al.…”

“…Further, the scarcity of large males implies that these older individuals may stay farther offshore, as has been hypothesized in past work (Morson et al. , ). As a result, the habitat preferences of such individuals cannot be characterized by the findings presented here.…”

“…Females dominated the captured fish larger than 45 cm (Figure ), and the sex ratio of observed flounder legal for recreational harvest was more extreme than those reported by the fishery‐dependent sampling efforts of Morson et al. (, , ) and the 2013 Benchmark Stock Assessment (NEFSC ). This discrepancy is perhaps due to the greater emphasis on shallower depths in this study.…”

“…; Morson et al. , , ). Females dominated the captured fish larger than 45 cm (Figure ), and the sex ratio of observed flounder legal for recreational harvest was more extreme than those reported by the fishery‐dependent sampling efforts of Morson et al.…”

“…A validating example of this concern is seen in the New Jersey recreational Summer Flounder fishery, where the harvest was found to be predominantly female (Morson et al. , ). Therefore, it is evident that spatial sex‐based population dynamics represent an important consideration in the successful management of this species (Terceiro ).…”