always wondered what the difference in fluke & flounder. and how to tell difference.

flounder are "right faced" and fluke are "left faced" ( from what i've read).

so, these would be legal in ny/nj, as they are flounder.

i would love to go up there and drift for fluke like you guys do. the pics are always impressive in size and quanity.
i know mj used to slay them.

Nope.
Those are "summer" flounder (fluke). They have spots, a big mouth and pointy teeth. Mouth on left when dark side is up and belly is towards you.

Winter flounder have tiny mouth on right, no teeth. They are smaller but thicker.
12" to keep now and thats a nice fish. A 12" fluke is thin and isn't worth keeping.

South of Barnegat NJ there are no "winter" flounder so everybody just calls fluke "flounder". Nobody south of Barnegat uses the word "Fluke".

The right hand/left hand rule doesn't always apply. There is a small percentage of them that flip the other way. I have caught a backwards fluke. I've caught a couple that were dark on both sides!


There are other flounder out there too...four-spot flounder, windowpane/sundial, far north there are yellowtail flounder, in the south there is a sub-species of "summer" flounder called southern flounder. Its very similar but generally much smaller than "summer" flounder.

whatever they are, they will be tacos tomorrow.

Love me some fish tacos.

Nice flounder.