Survey of finfish harvest in selected Texas Bays.
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The creels of sport anglers fishing in the coastal bays of Texas, including Galveston Bay, were surveyed over a two-year period utilizing rover counters to estimate pressure and completed trip interviews to estimate harvest. Commercial landings were obtained from monthly marine product reports obtained from each commercial fish dealer. An estimated 185,272 individual anglers fished in the eight survey areas, made 3,001,500 fishing trips and spent 13,643,300 man-hours of effort. Boat users provided 47.7% of the total effort in man-hours, wade-bank anglers 38.3% and lighted-pier fishermen 14.0%. The mean catch rate for all species for all fishermen was 0.61 lb/mh. Spotted seatrout were harvested at the highest rate for a single species. Sport and commercial fishermen produced 13,050,900 lbs. of fish from the eight areas during the survey period. Sport anglers landed 59.5% of the total poundage, commercial fishermen produced 40.5%.