Southern flounder gigging charter trip logs from the Texas Coastal Bend from 2017-05-01 to 2019-12-31

Southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) populations are declining in the Gulf of Mexico basin. This is particularly true in Texas, where this unique and culturally important fishery has been in decline since the 1980s despite increasingly stringent regulatory measures. Current angler-intercept creel surveys used to estimate recreational flounder harvest levels are conducted during daylight hours and do not account for the high levels of nighttime flounder gigging (spearing) activity, a popular and efficient harvest method for this fishery. There are legitimate scientific and logistical concerns that have prevented the use of wide-spread nighttime creel surveys to monitor the flounder gigging fishery in the past, however this has made accurate catch and effort estimates difficult to obtain. Given the concern about this economically important fishery’s status, we adopted a unique approach utilizing social media to provide unprecedented information into this fishery’s impact during periods that are not traditionally monitored. Specifically, we reconstructed seasonal flounder harvest and effort metrics stemming from the nighttime recreational guided flounder gigging sector over 2.6 years using guided flounder gigging charter photo archives publicly available through Facebook. The dataset here represents trip records for three guides that posted numerous photos of their guided trips on Facebook. Each row represents one photo that was assumed to represent an individual charter trip (usually confirmed based on photo description or client party size). For each photo, the number of clients and all fish pictured were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible and counted. For each photo, two independent readers made blind counts of each species present and the number of clients. When counts differed, the photo was jointly examined to reach a consensus. This dataset supports the publication: Hall, Q. A., D. M. Coffey, M. K. Streich, M. R. Fisher, and G. W. Stunz. 2022. Social media shines light on the "hidden" impact of nighttime guide-gigging charters on Texas' Southern Flounder fishery: A stab in the dark. PLOS ONE. In Press.