PROVIDENCE - New regulations will go into effect tomorrow -- Thursday, September 30 -- that prohibit commercial fishermen from harvesting summer flounder, or fluke, until November 1. The regulations were filed by the Department of Environmental Management today, in order to prevent the state from exceeding its 261,387- pound quota for summer flounder caught by commercial fishermen.

The new regulations are part of an ongoing effort to manage the annual allocation of summer flounder the state receives from the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. They were enacted to ensure the availability of fish to commercial fishermen and consumers throughout the entire year.

Rhode Island's 1,740,000-pound commercial summer flounder quota is sub-divided into seasonal periods, each with its own catch allocation. As of September 18th, 190,463 pounds of summer flounder had already been harvested by commercial fishermen. This figure represents 87 percent of the state's quota for this period, which runs from September 1 to October 31.

The state's recreational fluke fishery has also been closed. This year's recreational summer flounder fishing season ran from May 29 through September 11.