July 7, 2020 — The $25.2 million East Coast market for summer flounder — although a reliable bread-and-butter fish — has faced ups and downs in quotas over the years.
The 2020 commercial quota is 11.53 million pounds, while the recreational harvest limit is 7.69 million pounds. The highest percent of commercial allocation goes to Virginia (21.32 percent) and North Carolina (27.44 percent) while Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire have the smallest allocations.
Anecdotally, in the last few years, the price per pound for jumbo summer flounder (4 pounds or larger) decreased, with some vessels getting around 50 cents less per pound for jumbos compared to smaller sizes. As market conditions have shifted relative to quotas over the past few years, there is some speculation that markets prefer smaller product that fits better on a plate.
Now 2020 is the first full year with higher quotas for the fishery — but with the covid-19 crisis and its impact on markets globally, it remains to be seen if quotas will be fully utilized.
“It’s going to be very hard to predict summer flounder landings for 2020 at this point. Last year, the quotas were revised upward by about 50 percent, based on the new stock assessment, but that change wasn’t implemented until midyear,” says Kiley Dancy of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council staff.