The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries announced the recreational flounder season will not open this year “in order to preserve the southern flounder resource.”

Citing continuing pressures on the fishery, state officials announced Thursday that there will be no recreational flounder season in 2024.

The move comes after years of smaller and smaller windows for recreational fishermen to catch the popular fish, culminating in last year’s short two-week harvest window.

But officials said even that short fishing period was too much for the already depleted flounder fishery.

“Estimates from 2023 indicate the recreational catch exceeded the quota allowed under a stock rebuilding plan that was included in Amendment 3 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan and adopted by the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission,” stated a release from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.

Under current rules, exceeding a quota in one year means the following year’s allowable catch number must be reduced by the amount that exceeded the limit.

“After subtracting the recreational overage from 2023, the recreational quota remaining for 2024 is not large enough to allow for a season opening. The leftover quota will be used to account for the anticipated dead discards that will occur due to incidental catch and release,” states the release.

“The commission discussed holding a special meeting to consider alternatives to not holding a 2024 recreational season but ultimately did not move forward with that approach.” 

The state’s move on Thursday continues a series of steps that regulators hope will help the struggling fishery rebound, although the moves have frustrated local anglers who never had to deal with a closed flounder season until 2019 and watch neighboring states adopt much less stringent rules.

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Among the responses to the restrictions on the fishery, which many recreational fishermen see as heavy handed, has been a lawsuit filed by the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina alleging the state has mismanaged its coastal fisheries, including flounder.

Pressures on the flounder fishery have been growing for decades, with recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen blaming each other for depleting near-shore flounder populations.

Climate change is another concern among scientists, with warming sea temperatures potentially impacting the sex ratio of the fishery. Since juvenile flounders hang out in shallow, inland estuary waters, warmer water temperatures likely trigger more of the fish to be male. That also could be a growing problem because female flounders grow bigger than males, and thus are more highly sought than the smaller males.

For the past two years, recreational fishermen have caught more flounder than allowed under the recreational quota approved by the marine fisheries commission in the N.C. Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan Amendment 3. The amendment, adopted in May 2022, called for a 72% reduction in the southern flounder harvest, with both commercial and recreational fisheries seeing dramatic cuts.

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on X/Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from the Green South Foundation and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full editorial control of the work.