I went fishing with a couple nice old guys the other day. We had waded about a half-mile from the boat (did I mention these are also tough, in-shape old guys that could probably kick your sorry butt?) when one of them hooked into a little flounder. He examined the fish and asked me, “What’s the size limit on fluke?” I told him we don’t have fluke here and that his fish was a Gulf flounder. “Nah,” he said, “it’s a fluke. Flounder don’t have teeth.”

This is not the first time I’ve run into the “flounder or fluke” debate, and I’ve been told that there are two ways to tell if your fish is a flounder: Look for teeth and check which side of the head the eyes are on. If it’s got a toothless mouth or the eyes are on the right side, it’s a flounder. Otherwise, it’s a fluke. And that’s true — if you’re fishing in New Jersey. But you’re in Florida now.