poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

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karstopo
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Re: poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

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Re: poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

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https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/atl_anom.gif

Cooler than average water still holding on the shelf. That bodes well for a good spawn/recruitment season. Can’t blame too warm of water anyhow if things don’t go well.
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karstopo
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Re: poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

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One thing that’s interesting about our southern flounder is according to the research the males pretty much stay offshore their entire lives. I’ve read lots of accounts of people saying they catch males at such and such time of the run and the females later, but if the article I shared citing different studies is correct, those “males” are just females that haven’t had time to grow up yet.

Another interesting thing about the studies is that females average over 16” by their second year. Female Flounder grow fast.

Males on the other hand do not. “Male flounders are small, seldom growing larger than 10 to 12 inches”, According to the link below. The stuff you read about males in the flounder run may be pure fiction.

https://www.seagrantfish.lsu.edu/pdfs/f ... ounder.pdf
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Re: poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

Post by Crusader »

karstopo wrote:The stuff you read about males in the flounder run may be pure fiction.
That is actually a very interesting claim. Assuming it is correct and males are staying in deeper water -- what happens to these males we introduce into bays during flounder stocking programs? Do we introduce them into new habitat, potentially shifting natural balance by introducing new "invasive" critter?

What if by doing this we create new male flounder population that never leaves bays and breaks natural migration cycle (thus leading to lower catches during run)? And soon this may lead to most females spawning in Galveston Ship Channel instead of going 30 miles offshore...

;)
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Re: poll: what do you think about this year's flounder run?

Post by karstopo »

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/atl_anom.gif

Temperatures along the continental shelf waters have remained below long term averages all winter, at least along the Texas coast. This has been said to be a big factor in whether or not flounder have a successful spawn/recruitment. Lots of little flounder are now inbound and in a couple of years will be a nice 16 -17“ size.

http://gcrl.usm.edu/public/fish/flounder.php
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