Digital Extra

The state Division of Fish and Wildlife recommended last night that regulators open an expanded flounder fishing season in Rhode Island waters this year.

The Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council adopted regulations to open a 68-day flounder fishing season with a four-fish daily limit for recreational anglers. Commercial fishermen would be allowed to take a 300-pound daily limit until the commercial fleet fills a 90,000-pound quota.

The recreational season would be split in two parts. The first would open from April 13 to May 19, and the second from Sept. 28 to Oct. 28, if the rules are approved by federal regulators, said Dick Sisson, deputy chief of the Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Commercial fishermen will have to use nets with at least a 6-inch mesh that would allow immature fish to escape.

Biologists have been sampling two Washington County salt ponds affected by the oil spill along Moonstone Beach, and they have found just-hatched flounder larvae that appear to be healthy, Sisson said in an interview before last night's meeting.

Samples have been sent to the University of Rhode Island, where other scientists are testing the minuscule creatures for abnormalities. Results are not yet available. Externally, the fish appear to be normal, Sisson said.

Biologists also have used two kinds of nets to collect any flounder that may have been killed by the spill in Point Judith and Ninigret Ponds, but the only flounder they found were alive, Sisson said.

Cindy Gray, a marine biologist who netted flounder in the salt ponds, found several sizes of fish, from 1-year-olds to a mature female bearing eggs, and she said they all appeared to be healthy. "The only problem with the female was that she looked like she had been hooked before," Gray said in an interview before the meeting. "That seemed to be her only problem, and the [hook] scar didn't seem to be infected from the oil."

Last night's regulations were not based on early assessments of the spill's damage, stressed Mark Gibson, another state biologist.

New England's winter flounder population had been declining for several years. In Rhode Island, the decline forced fishing regulators to close the fishery altogether in 1991; for the past two years, it has been open only to recreational anglers for 30 days in April, when catching fish was unlikely.

Last year's exceptionally good hatch of flounder was a boon to the fish and now to the fishers.

"For the past three years," said biologist Gray, "I've been sampling all of the ponds [for newly hatched flounder], and they've gone from almost none to a great amount last year.

"Last year, we had a really good year class [of flounder hatched]. Whether that's going to continue, we'll find out this year. Because of the oil spill, and everything else, this will be a telltale year."

The state Health Department still must test the flounder to determine whether they will be fit to go to market, Sisson said. If the fish contain traces of oil, they could not be sold, but recreational anglers still could take four flounder a day.

During her sampling of the ponds, Gray said, some of the weeds that came up in the nets smelled of oil, but the flounder were odor-free.