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North Carolina Marine Fisheries Proclamation FF-17-2025 opens the Atlantic Ocean commercial flounder season at 12:01 a.m., April 26, 2025, and establishes a 15,000-pound trip limit for vessels employing trawls.

Properly licensed vessel captains can possess landing limits for other states, but it shall be unlawful to offload those fish in North Carolina.

The fishery will close by proclamation once 80% of the annual North Carolina quota is reached, or at 6 p.m., Sept. 10, 2025, whichever occurs first.

The size limit stays the same: flounder less than 14 inches total length taken from the Atlantic Ocean in a commercial fishing operation.

“The intent of this proclamation is to establish harvest periods and limits for the taking of flounder from the Atlantic Ocean to assure that the quota allocated to North Carolina in the joint Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council/Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan is not exceeded. The summer flounder commercial fishery and management unit range is from Maine to North Carolina.”

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