Wardens Bust Two Men with 105 Flounder

Flounder poaching is real!

We addressed that issue here in an article last month and had some feedback suggesting flounder poaching was not really a problem.

I hate to be right but this story from Jefferson County shows a seriously egregious case of flounder poaching.

According to Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) officials, wardens in Jefferson County busted two men with a shocking amount of fish over the possession limit. This is from the TPWD Game Wardens Facebook page.

Two Jefferson County Game Wardens seized 105 flounder, of which 62 were undersized, 2 oversized redfish, and 19 lightning welks from 2 men near Port Arthur yesterday. Cases and civil restitution are pending.

Flounder deserve much more respect than this. If this were largemouth bass on Lake Fork there would be a giant public outcry. If it were speckled trout in Lower Laguna Madre legally caught on live croaker by a large party of anglers there would be an outcry. If the same trout were poached it would be shouted from the rooftops but little has been said about these flounder.

In fact some social media comments were lamenting the two fish bag limit in November instead of being disgusted at the outright rape of the resource here. Yes, some have used this as an opportunity to complain about the conservation measures that have allowed catches like this to even be possible.

This kind of poaching must end and we need to turn in those committing these kinds of crimes against our fishery. And folks who take dozens of times the daily limit are bad for the resource.