Flounder & Recreational Fishing Being Destroyed by Regulators?

Bucktail Willie Cape May Fishing Atlantic City Margate
Bucktail Willie

SUMMER FLOUNDER update from Bill Shillingford (Bucktail Willie)

2017 summer flounder regulations could be disastrous for South Jersey with 3 fish over 19″. In my opinion, the regulators are controlled by organizations determined to destroy recreational fishing with ridiculous regulations.

98% of all summer flounder over 18″ are female which means, assuming we obey the law, we will be throwing back prime spawners.  A 18-21″ summer flounder produces the most prime and healthy eggs.

HOWEVER, NJ fishing organizations and politicians, for the first time in memory, are together in this fight with regulator. This could get interesting.

Best we can hope for in 2017: Keep 2016 regulations in place until better data is available

Flounder fishermen NEED to keep pounding their legislators on this issue. Congressman Pallone and LoBiondo have introduced legislation to keep 2016 regulations in place for 2017. In my opinion, it’s a little late AND THEY NEED TO KEEP HEARING FROM FISHERMEN. This could just be  a smoke screen to keep voting fishermen happy.

Without ongoing involvement of fishermen, we’re going to lose this fight because environmentalists have the money and major influence on Congress.

DO NOT GIVE UP THE FIGHT, TIME IS SHORT. Write your congressman again and again until we get relief.

Bill Shillingford (Bucktail Willie)

Bill Shillingford (Bucktail Willie) is originally from the Cape May County area. His professional life moved him to the mid-west, but he has relocated back east upon his retirement. He has caught, tagged and released over 19,500 individual fish during his lifetime, including over 5,800 stiped bass, 1,000 weakfish, 7000 fluke, 1200 bluefish as well as kingfish, croakers, sharks, sea bass, snook and redfish. The anglers’ that eventually catch these fish at a later time return the tag information to American Littoral Society.ALS notifies original tagger and angler who caught the tagged fish with critical information. Bill records the information in his extensive logs. Bill holds a certification as a registered Fishologist and tags for the American Littoral Society. Bucktail is the author of many fishing articles for East Coast fishing magazines such as New Jersey Fisherman.Jersey Shore Angler,Cape May Herald.
He received the nickname “Bucktail” because he makes his own fishing lures from the tail of a buck (deer) and the name has caught on ever since.

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