Since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy, China’s fishery industry has made great achievements and made great contributions to world food security, social and economic development and other fields. It is an important research subject of fishery development in the new era to sum up the achievements made since the reform and opening-up 40 years ago, objectively analyze the industrial development and the structural evolution process, and forecast the development trend in the future. Based on the statistical data of China’s fishery production from 1978 to 2017 and the national fishery policy, this paper divides the different development stages, and analyzes the industrial structure of China’s fishery development in different stages by using the grey relation theory, several grey forecasting models GM (1,1) were established and the optimal model was used to forecast the fishery output of in the 14th five-year plan in China. We think that China’s fishery development can be divided into five stages in the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, namely, recovery development period (1978-1984), rapid development period (1985-1994), expansion development period (1995-2005), steady development period (2006-2011) and transition development period (2012-). It is estimated that during the 14th five-year plan period, China’s total fishery output will be kept at 66-71 million tons, including 10-10.8 million tons for offshore fishing and 21.2-23.7 million tons for mariculture. In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China’s fishery industry has adhered to the concept of harmonious development of ecology and fishery, established the dominant position of the vast majority of fishermen, and formulated industrial policies that match the different stages of development. The management system adapted to the present situation of the industry has been established, and new and emerging technologies adapted to the needs of the industry have been developed. At the same time, some suggestions for the future development of high quality fishery in China are put forward.