Proposed Bill would Tighten Flounder Limit

Posted on May 29, 2009 
Filed Under News

The majority of local hook and line flounder fishermen would be quick to tell you- South Carolina’s regulations for the popular flatfish are much too liberal and they rarely if ever come close to catching the current daily limits of 20 flounder per person or boat limit of 40 flounder.

A significant change in the state’s flounder recreational bag limit could be on the way if Bill S 445 make it through the S.C. House of Representatives and is subsequently approved by Gov. Mark Sanford.

The bill, which has already been passed in the Senate, would drop South Carolina’s daily flounder limits from 20 per person to 10 and 40 per boat to 20.

The bill would also establish a Flounder Pilot Program to be administered by the S.C. department of Natural Resources, which would outlaw for a five-year period the use of any type of artificial illumination powered by a generator while gigging or fishing for flounder in the estuaries from Pawleys Island northward through Murrells Inlet. The prohibition of generator-driven lights in those areas would begin July 1 and end June 30, 2014 if the bill becomes a law.

Sponsored by Sen. Ray Cleary, R- Georgetown, and Sen. Yancey McGill, D-Williamsburg, the bill was originally designed to establish a flounder population study program from Pawleys Island to Murrells Inlet. But in the Senate on March 26 the statewide changes to the daily bag limit and boat limits for flounder were added.

“Hopefully it will get through (the House) in the next two weeks and then be signed by the Governor,” Cleary said Tuesday. “It is something that probably won’t take effect until sometime in June if we’re successful.”

Cleary met with a group of anglers hailing from Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet last fall to discuss concerns with the flounder fishery, including the state’s limits and the number of fish being harvested by flounder giggers using the powerful generator-driven lights. That meeting was part of the impetus that got the bill rolling.

“There were some people overharvesting and we feel like this will allow flounder to be more available for anybody going fishing,” said Cleary, a Murrells Inlet resident. “To probably 95 percent of the people that enjoy [flounder fishing] this [bill would] have absolutely no effect on them except for the enjoyment of the fact that they might be able to actually go out and see what a flounder looks like. Do we really need somebody going out and getting more [flounder] a night than that (20 per boat)?”

The changes would affect hook and line fishermen and giggers equally by cutting the current daily bag limit and boat limit in half. Giggers would still be able to gig for flounder the old fashioned way- using batter operated flashlights, spotlights, lanterns, etc- to spot their prey. The artificial lighting mechanism simply cannot be powered by a generator from Pawleys Island to Murrells Inlet. The generator restriction would not apply to the rest of the state.

“It looks like a football game out there if you’ve seen it,” said Cleary of giggers using generator driven illumination. “[The bill would eliminate] the generators from those two areas. Some people say you can see [the generator driven lights] from satellite sometimes.”

Charlie Nash, a Garden City Beach resident and an experienced flounder fisherman who resides adjacent to Murrells Inlet, has seen the lights in action.

“They really illuminate the water so much that you could see anything on the bottom,” Nash said. “I would imagine if you dropped a penny on the bottom you could see it with those lights. If there was a flounder around anywhere you could see it. It’s not illegal and has not been illegal and people have been taking advantage of it. If it’s not illegal and people do it, then its fine.”

Cleary questioned how liberal the current flounder limits in the Palmetto State are compared to neighboring states. The current daily limits per person are eight flounder in North Carolina, 10 in Florida, and 15 in Georgia.

“Most people don’t realize flounder is one of the top three fish targeted in South Carolina,” Cleary said. “We want to make sure we have enough flounder not only for us but for generations to come. We thought it was prudent to reduce the limits to a lower amount.”

Nash has spend plenty of fishing trips over the years slow trolling the for flounder using live bait such as mud minnows and mullet in Murrells Inlet and points to the substantial increase in fishing pressure on the species-and others- in recent years.

The combination of increased fishing pressure, the smallish size of the estuaries such as Pawleys Island, Murrells Inlet and Cherry Grove and the current liberal limits is not a good one for the flounder population.

“Our inlets are very small,” Nash said. “You can cover Murrells Inlet or Pawleys Island in a night very easily if you’re going to fish with any type of illumination lights or if you’re going to fish [with hook and line] from a boat you can cover the whole area within one day.

“When you have as many people who live on the inlets and as many people that come here from other parts of the country that want to fish in this area it’s not a lot of demand on the small area we have here. From the standpoint of the number of people that are fishing, it is probably the most we’ve ever had in our lifetime.”

by Gregg Holshouser
The Sun News
Aprll 24, 2009