went trout fishing, came back with a catfish

[SkunkBoat]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

two on the outside are 14", one in the middle is 16.5", not doormats, but decent bay flounder

all throwbacks in NJ

[charlie_the_tuna]

Originally Posted by SkunkBoat

all throwbacks in NJ

new York too.

[phatdaddy]

yea, east coast flounder are a lot bigger, fl record is 20lb, caught over on the east coast. gulf & bay flounder are their smaller cousins. around here, a 7-8 lb flounder makes the paper.

my personal best is 6.5 lbs, shot it while scalloping.

interesting, i looked at the ny/nj fishing regs, you guys have winter flounder(12" min) and summer flounder/ fluke (18"min).

[Giorgio]

Flounder is different than a Fluke.

[charlie_the_tuna]

a few years back our summer flounder size was 21 inches. not a lot of keepers that year.

[phatdaddy]

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.

[SkunkBoat]

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.