October 5, 2026 — Guam’s boat fishers spent more time trolling in 2025 and still landed 53% less fish, a drop the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has yet to explain with certainty.
The council’s Status of the Fisheries 2025 report puts the estimated pelagic catch at 326,979 pounds, less than half the average of 700,109 pounds over the past decade. Trolling hours rose 7.4% to 41,518. Active trolling vessels climbed to 466 from 447. Catch rates dropped across most species.
“Fishers had to spend more time and effort to catch the same amount of pelagic fish than in previous years,” the council said in a statement to The Guam Daily Post. Staff at the Guam Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, or DAWR, believe changing ocean conditions, including possible lingering effects of the 2023 and 2024 El Niño, may have altered fish movement. Even so, the council said, “the data do not point to a single cause.”