Monday Flounder Update: Turn in Flounder Poachers!
Greetings fellow flounder fanatics!
I hope this week finds you getting to spend time with family and friends and thanking the Lord for the amazing blessings we have here in the United States of America.
Thanksgiving is always known as the peak of the fall flounder run and I expect some good movements of fish this week. In fact, I have strategically planned some fishing trips in response.
Feel free to send in pics of your fall run catches this week and don't forget our November replica contest is still in play. For more information on how to submit fish click here.
Flounder Poaching Must End
I'm a live and let live kind of guy.
To tell the truth there are times I probably let people get away with a little too much on certain things in world of fishing and hunting than I should. However, flounder poaching in any form has got to go.
I have heard numerous, reliable reports of anglers keeping not only more than the two fish allowed in November and the five fish the rest of the year but ice chests full of flounder (rod and reel and gig) over the last two weeks.
These are not anglers who forgot the regulations but who could care less about our resource. We are trying to protect this resource and 99 percent of the people are in compliance. In fact, most anglers have embraced the new regulations and said it gives them a new appreciation for the resource. Those however who are keeping far more than their limit deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law.
You can turn them in anonymously at 1-800-792-GAME (Operation Game Thief) and receive a cash reward if a conviction is made.
Some of the people involved in the flounder poaching are likely selling their catches which is subject to even more punishment. Whether you are recreational or commercial, rod and reel or gigger you should not tolerate flounder poaching and flounder poaches.
They steal from us all.
Questions on Tides
Texas Fish & Game has a new tide chart that is easy to read and works for virtually any area on the coast.
This fall, super high tides in conjunction with south winds and rains have caused flooding conditions and played heck with fishing in areas of the Texas Coast. With that in mind I thought it would be worth revisiting (and adding to) a column I wrote back in 1998 about tides.
Judging from questions I get from readers, tides cause more confusion among coastal anglers than any other subject does. One of the questions I hear most often goes something like this: "I saw where the low tide was going to be at 11:15, but the water was up above the boat dock. How could the tide be so high during the low tide period?"
To answer this and any other question about tides, it is best to take a good look at what tides are and exactly what forces cause them.Tides are the periodic rise and fall of all ocean waters. They are caused in two different ways: gravity upon the water from the moon and sun, and gravity upon the water from the earth. My mentor, the late Ed Holder, told me that the easiest way to understand how these tidal movements work is to compare them to a wave.
"In essence a tide is a large, slow-moving wave that starts off in the ocean, moves through a pass and ends up in the back of a bay or upland into a river system. And it's all influenced by the elements,” he said.
Remember that most waves are influenced by wind and tides are no different. This is why some low tides are not always so low.A strong southerly wind pushes a lot of water into a bay system, causing unusually high tides, even sometimes during periods when moon or solar patterns call for low tides. Conversely, north winds will push water out of an ecosystem. That is why during the fall we get such low tides. "Blue northers" in conjunction with a strong tidal pull will really drain an area and help to cleanse coastal marshes.
Moving on, but still keeping with the idea of viewing the tide as a wave, it's very important for anglers to understand that tidal strength at points away from the immediate coastline won't be as strong as those at a pass near the Gulf.
"You've got to realize that like any wave, a tide weakens as it move inland," Holder said. "So your strongest tide will be near the Gulf and the weakest will be far into the bay or river."
The Port Arthur News' tides are given for the Old Coast Guard station at Sabine Pass. However, at Stewts Island, on the north end of Sabine Lake, what is a three-foot tidal change at the pass may be reduced to somewhere between two and two and a half feet. And 10 miles up the river at the Interstate 10 Bridge at the Neches River, it might be only a one foot change. But you will need to remember, the wave weakens as it moves farther inland.
Another question I'm frequently asked is: "We saw on the television that we would have a high tide about 5:00 a.m., so we got out there an hour early and the tide didn't move for hours. Was the TV tide table wrong?"
Probably not.
Most times when I get a question like this, it's from someone who doesn't understand one very important point about tides. That point is, the tides given on television merely tell you when the lows and highs occur. However, they don't tell you how much change will occur between tides.
Let's take this situation, for example. Say for a Tuesday, the tables will predict two high tides and two low tides. The highs will occur at 3:35 a.m. and 12:58 p.m. and the lows will occur at 8:55 a.m. and 8:37 p.m.That's all the information you get in some tide tables. But if you dig deeper into charts that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains as we do, you would find some very interesting information about those same tides.You would learn that the tide is forecast to drop only eight inches between the 3:35 a.m. high and 8:55 a.m. low. And it is forecast to rise only about five inches between that 8:55 a.m. low and 12:50 p.m. high.
But you would also learn that between that 12:50 p.m. high and the 8:37 p.m. low, the tide is forecast to drop more than 2-1/2 feet-a very strong tide for the Texas Gulf Coast.
Now let's suppose someone decides to go fishing on that Tuesday morning and doesn't look at our tidal chart, but instead glances at the tide times on television. He sees there will be a low tide at 8:55 a.m. and a high tide at 12:50 p.m., so he assumes the tide at the Sabine jetties will be rising between those two times. It will, but it will rise only five inches, which is an inch an hour. He probably won't even notice the change. And he'll come back convinced the television was wrong.
To base a fishing trip around tidal movements, the key thing to watch is how much change will occur between tides. Just reading the general tide table is a waste of time. An angler must use the aforementioned "Tidal Correction Table" to adjust for tidal movements in the area he plans to fish. Once learning how to read tide charts is mastered, there are a few other things to keep in mind that can help you successfully fish around tides.
By the way, Texas Fish & Game's new website, fishgame.com has a killer new tide chart system that allows you to put GPS coordinates of your favorite spots to find the nearest tide chart. You can access them by clicking here.
Posted by Flounder Revolution at 11/22/2009 12:31 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Chester Moore flounder stocking flounder conservation flounder revolution flounder replica program Texas flounder stocking
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Chester Moore flounder stocking flounder conservation flounder revolution flounder replica program Texas flounder stocking
Chester,
Keep up the good work that you and Bryan are doing for our flounder. I would also like to bring up that there are certain individuals that TP&W have issued permits to for the purpose of collecting flounder for our hatcheries. I know that my friend Wayne Pedigo is one of these individuals & was out collecting flounder the other day & had several people call in on him as he was not only taking more than the 2 per/day but also undersize males to be taken to Sea Center Texas in Lake Jackson. When he arrived back at the yacht basin the Game Warden & Galveston Police were there to check him out. He presented his documentation to prove he was legit. It was his first time to collect flounder since getting his permit. They asked that in the future for whatever jurisdiction he may be collecting, that he call in to let them know the area he would be collecting at so if they received a call about someone taking more than their limit, they would know he was in that area for the purpose of collection for the hatchery. Wayne nad Allen Miller collected 15 flounder for Sea Center Texas' flounder hatchery program that day. Good job fellows. Keep up the good work.
Kevin "BUZZ" Burns
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