A model to forecast the catches of the Japanese common squid, Todarodes pacificus, before the fishing season in the Sea of Okhotsk off Hokkaido was examined using information about the abundance of the squid in the Pacific off eastern Hokkaido and the sea surface temperature (SST) off Kunashiri Island, northeast of Hokkaido. Catches of the squid in the Sea of Okhotsk off Hokkaido by set nets during October to December, 1993 to 2011, with the exception of the outlier 1996 which was regarded as the response variable of the model were accurately predicted using a generalized linear model (GLM). Three explanatory variables used in the GLM were 1) catch per unit effort (CPUE) in the Pacificeast off Kushiro in late August by research vessels, 2) CPUE of commercial jigging vessels at Kushiro Port during July to August and 3) SST in the southern area off Kunashiri Island in July. The correlation coefficient between the predicted catches by the model and the observed catches was 0.853. It is suggested that most of the squid caught in the Sea of Okhotsk off Hokkaido migrated from the Pacific Ocean rather than the Sea of Japan.

The stock and migration ecology of the neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartramii) winter–spring cohort depends on the feeding environment in the spawning grounds. Since the spawning grounds are confined by a sea surface temperature range of 21 to 25°C, the spawning grounds will shift in location with global warming. For that reason, estimation of the feeding environment temporal variation in the new spawning grounds is necessary to present a vision for the future fisheries. There are many climate models that have been used to simulate the future climates in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases 3 (CMIP3). In this study, we used three different emissions scenarios (B1, A1B, andA2) and models from three different modeling groups (MIROC3.2 (hires), CGCM3.1 (T47) and CSIRO-Mk3.0) toestimate the feeding environment in the spawning grounds. We estimated the chlorophyll-a concentration, as an index of feeding environment, in an indirect way by using physical parameters of each model, hence these models did not output the forage, i.e., particulate organic matter and zoo plankton. In our study, all simulations showed that the chlorophyll-a concentration in the spawning grounds increases continuously through the 21st century due to the spawning grounds northward shift. The better feeding condition strongly suggests an increase in stock, however, it also retains the possibility that the migration ecology will change. So, the flourishing of the neon flying squid may not link to the catch increase in the current fishing grounds.