Florida Flounder Harvest Reopens December 1st
Eugene L. 11.29.22
The wait for flounder anglers in Florida is almost over, starting this Thursday, December 1st you can legally harvest Florida flounder once again. Hopefully, the flounder don’t take a play out of the red snapper handbook and disappear as soon as the season starts.
Back on October 15th the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) closed the recreational harvest of Florida flounder species in state and federal waters in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. This was done to help protect the flounder during the spawning season when they gather in larger groups to prepare to spawn. This annual flounder season closure and other fisheries management measures on the Florida flounder were approved back in December 2020 during the FWC December Commission meeting. This was brought on by data the Commission had received from flounder stock sampling that showed a declining trend in the population levels of flounder in the waters around Florida.
So starting from December 1st the season is open again for all species of flounder in all the legal ways you can catch flounder. Be it gigging, seine nets, cast nets, or hook and line. This applies to both state waters and federal waters in both the Gulf and Atlantic.
To clarify the term Florida Flounder covers three different species of flounder, the gulf flounder (Paralichthys albigutta), southern flounder (P. lethostigma), and summer flounder (P. dentatis). The regulations just lump all three species together into one regulation so you can have up to a 5 fish aggregate of the three flounder species. The size limit for all three species also does not change and has to be 14″ total length.
Learn more about flounder regulations at MyFWC.com/Marine by clicking “Recreational Regulations” and “Flounder” or download the Fish Rules App at Instagram.com/FishRulesApp or Facebook.com/FishRulesApp.
