NJ Flounder 2017 - Part 2

A basic flaw in the reasoning presented is that the ratio of male to female flounder are the same regardless of size.

That is, that the growth curve for males and females are the same.

Are they?

We know for many species this is not the case, and specifically for summer flounder, it's not.

Females grow faster, mature at a larger size, and thus in any given sampling at a given size,
going for the maximum is culling more females than males, and the larger you increase
the minimum size, the heavier ratio of females you are pulling from the very population you want to encourage.

Lastly, not all females mature at the same rate, with samplings showing that
The smallest mature male was 19.1 cm and the largest immature male was 39.9cm.
Females began maturing at 24.9 cm and the largest immature female was 43.9 cm. The range of L50
for males and females indicates sexual maturity is attained by age 2
Adult females are 60 mm total length (TL) longer on average than males at
first attainment of sexual maturity.
http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/tm/tm151/tm151.pdf

http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/fbp/age-man/smfl/smfl.htm

There is a lot of data out there, and more actual study of the ratios of male to females needs to occur to prove what I'm asserting, but reports from long time anglers indicate this is true, and the papers I quickly pulled up definitely lend credence to the hypothesis that we are, by mismanagement, actually impacting the recruitment for the summer flounder population.