Well, that was quick.
North Carolina’s 2026 recreational Southern flounder season opened Sept. 1 and closed Sept. 14. Fourteen days. One fish per person per day. What was once the most popular food fish in state waters is now an afterthought.
In contrast, South Carolina allows recreational flounder harvest year-round, with a five-fish daily limit. Georgia is open year-round as well, with a 15-fish daily limit. So why is North Carolina so different?
Southern flounder stocks remain overfished, and the state has imposed harvest restrictions in an effort to rebuild the stock.
In 2024, North Carolina did not open the coastal recreational flounder season. Last year and this year, the recreational season lasted two weeks. Commercial fishers have faced
significant restrictions as well. Yet more than 20 years after the original Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan, North Carolinians have yet to see the kind of recovery that would restore meaningful access to a viable fishery.
This comes down to a management problem.
Commercial southern flounder landings have fallen from 4.9 million pounds in 1994 to 1.7 million pounds in 2014 to a quota of only 369,000 pounds in 2024, a 92% decline. Similarly, Atlantic croaker fell from 21 million pounds in 1980 to 2.63 million pounds in 2014 to 0.4 million pounds in 2024, a 98% decline.
Landings aren’t a stock assessment, but the long-term declines across multiple fisheries make clear that North Carolina’s current management approach needs significant reform.
A 14-day fall season makes it clear we still have a long way to go.
For decades, our state has responded to declining fish stocks largely by managing what remains: shortening seasons, lowering bag limits, and allocating limited harvests between commercial and recreational fishers. Those measures may reduce pressure on adult fish, but rebuilding abundance also requires confronting sources of mortality before fish ever reach harvestable size and allowing a significant portion of those fish to spawn prior to harvest. Further, the State’s well-documented inability to accurately account for what is actually harvested and more importantly, discarded, means overfishing continues.
That is why large-scale, inshore bottom shrimp trawling deserves greater scrutiny. North Carolina still allows large-scale bottom shrimp trawling in estuarine waters, even as the state’s own shrimp plan identifies Southern flounder, croaker, spot, weakfish, summer flounder, blue crab, and kingfishes among the economically valuable species commonly caught as bycatch by this destructive fishing method.
If we’re serious about rebuilding resilient fish stocks and having seasons that look more like those of our neighboring states, we need to address avoidable mortality throughout the system, not simply ration the fish that remain.
North Carolina fisheries management should restore our marine resources and their associated habitats so fishermen, guides, commercial fishers, and seafood, tackle, and boat businesses once again have meaningful access to a healthy public resource.
Fourteen days came and went quickly this year. The decline that got us here took decades. We cannot accept another decade of managing scarcity instead of rebuilding abundance. North Carolinians deserve better.
Tim Gestwicki is CEO of North Carolina Wildlife Federation. Since becoming CEO in 2007, he has worked to bring together citizens, outdoor enthusiasts, hunters and anglers, government officials, and industry to protect North Carolina’s natural resources and sustainably manage them for future generations. Under his leadership, NCWF’s conservation network of hundreds of volunteers focuses on wildlife and habitat conservation, education and outreach.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: NC must work to restore its marine resources | Opinion
