Diving Point Judith Harbor of Refuge 6/28/2008 Fluke & Clam Hunting

Written by: Phaleg

Tide was going to be high at 4:05 PM today, so we figured we would head out to the fluke waters before full high tide and have a look around. The water is getting pretty warm around New England now with most places well into the 60’s for an average surface temperature. The bottom temp at say 20’ – 35’ is much cooler with an average in the low to mid 50’s. The Flounder seem to like it at around 60 for a bottom temp before the real monsters move in for the feeding frenzies that seem to linger for days on the New England shore lines.
 
At around 10’ or so the Flounder started appearing everywhere. These were the Winter Flounder though and season on this little fella is closed until September. The state of Rhode Island has a very limited season on Winter Flounder trying to get the populations to rebound a bit. We have a heavy fishing industry in this state, and the state is working very hard to make sure Fishing regulations work hand in hand with commercial and recreational limits.

 As you can see they blend in quite well with their surroundings in this Eel grass / Sand mix breeding heaven for Flounder of all types. We have 4 types that inhabit our waters on a regular basis. Winter Flounder, Summer Flounder, Yellowtail Flounder, and Witch Flounder, all are truly delicious. My wife and children don’t really care too much for fish, but flounder is top on their list of good stuff to eat. They love several types of the fish I hunt here in New England, and Flounder is their favorite, I personally like Tautog the best. The picture above is of a Winter Flounder, you can tell by the mouth most of all. A Winter, Yellowtail, and Witch Flounder all have very small mouths, while the highly aggressive Summer Flounder (A.K.A. Fluke) has a very large, toothy menacing mouth, and uses it to chase down prey and gobble them up whole.

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