In order to explore the development process of fisheries resources science, we analyzed the research hot spots, concerned problems and variation trends in each research periods, and provided reference for the development of fishery resources science in China. The methods of bibliometric analysis and Citespace software were used to review the document related to the study on fisheries resource science and indexed ISI Web of Science Core Collection database. We first created descriptive statistics of the number of articles published annually and frequency distribution. Then, the methods of key words based on knowledge mapping and burst analysis were used to explore the research hotspots and recent frontiers. The results showed that the overall studies on fisheries resource science increased steadily in the past decades, especially the number of documents has shown a rapid growth trend since 2017. The most hotspots in fisheries resource science include attaching importance to the research on the fisheries resources assessment, paying attention to the research on fishery management methods, practice and the impact of management on fishery, studying fishery biology and ecology of the bony Osteichthyes, the cartilaginous and economic Cephalopods, and studying impacts of climate changes or human activities on fishery resources or fishes. The study found that the future research of fishery resources should focus on the following work:(1) finding out the biological characteristics of important economic species and key species through interdisciplinary innovation of new techniques and methods in fishery biology; (2) innovating new techniques in fishery resources assessment to realize the accurate estimation of the amount of important economic species resources and the allowable catch; (3) innovating new methods in fishery resources management and conservation to realize the sustainable development of fishery resources; (4) applying new techniques such as artificial intelligence and big data in fishery resources research. With the development of understanding and research on fish stocks, and the development of research means and methods, and the research on fishery resources in the future will be expanded to a more detailed, broader and deeper level, and the people and natural fishery resources will be considered as a whole system, from the traditional single-species-multi-species-ecosystem, to the eco-socio-economic system, to achieve the optimal output of fishery resources in the human-natural system, as well as the long-term sustainable utilization of fishery resources.