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The U.S. South Atlantic region has many long‐standing data needs and limited data collection resources for federally managed marine fish stocks. Much of the harvest is dominated by recreational fisheries, where data are limited, especially during historic time periods. FISHstory, a pilot project developed through the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Citizen Science Program, developed a standardized protocol for archiving and analyzing historic photos from the 1940s to 1970s from a for‐hire fleet based in Florida. These photos document the beginnings of the South Atlantic for‐hire fishery and are potentially an untapped source of data that can help recreate information on catch and length composition prior to when dedicated fishery dependent surveys began. Many careful steps were taken in the design of FISHstory to ensure data collected would be fit for purpose and useful to management. This paper highlights these steps and describes lessons learned through project development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]