NCDMF. Has announced that there will be no recreational flounder season in 2024.
I know this thread will become political but here is a good video that explains what this has happened.
Not happy at all

What a shame. Commercial fishing lobbyists always put the burden of their overfishing onto the recreational fishermen. Always have and always will.

The vid actually digs into how the reporting on bycatch was used against the recreational fishermen to say they were the reason for the overage, it continues to go into how shrimp trawling has a almost 4-1 bycatch for juvenile flounder that is not even counted.

A further stick in the eye is that the catch limit for commercial flounder is 500lbs per day (or 1,000lbs or up to 2,000lbs per day, depending on location). A 15" flounder is about one pound and recs are allowed (or were) allowed to only keep one per day.

That's the power of lobbyist money buying the regulations. Change the subject from flounder to any other species and you'll see the same favoritism.

Flounder is my favorite fish and we have to always throw it back! What a shame.

My dad and I were discussing this today. What a crock of schit. I kept 1 flounder last year. I would have kept two, but it flopped itself over the rail of the yak.

A few years ago I watched videos on catching shrimp in the sound because we saw a lot of smaller craft dragging a net around Manteo and I was curious. They had a small sorting table and proceeded to get the shrimp out first and dealt with the bycatch many minutes later. Lots of small flatfish, spot, and croaker in the mix. Almost certainly all dead when released. Unreal.