Social media shines light on the "hidden" impact of nighttime guided-gigging charters on Texas' Southern Flounder fishery: A stab in the dark.

ABSTRACT: 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 ob

SUBMITTER: Hall QA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9165888 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature