My understanding of fluke biology is that they grow rapidly, compared to other fish species. Females grow faster than males. In their first year a fluke can grown between 9-12 inches. Growth slows down some during year 1-3. By year 3 a fluke should be somewhere between 14-15 inches. By year 3, females have eggs, which are proportional to size(a larger female has more eggs). So the 17+" shorts are anywhere between 3-5 years old. There isn't a documented study I have been able to read about the growth of fluke...it is all speculation. However, I did read a post sometime over the last month, saying that someone was told that a tagged fish had grown an entire inch in just 1 month.
So yes, the shorts, should be keepers next season. I am sure the amount of food available has something to do with growth rate as well. So if they eat well...or the recreational fishermen feed them well
, they should grow pretty well. Some of the shorts however, will get bagged by the commercial guys who have a much smaller minimum length regulation of 14 inches. How that affects recreational fishermen, I am not sure. No one ever has facts, statistics or even educated hypotheses about this...just some random sampling of fish on a certain day!
Hope this helps?
