The California market squid is the state’s most valuable fishery, worth an estimated $56 million ex-vessel in 2009, compared with a combined $96 million for all other fisheries that year. There is, however, is no formal stock assessment and no biomass estimate for the squid; it is a data-poor fishery. The goal of this project is to investigate whether the sizes of squid spawning aggregations can be used to make inferences on the stock’s health, and to predict squid landings for the following year. In the first year of the project, the fellow will mine and compile logbook data for catches off La Jolla to test whether traditional school-size models apply to spawning aggregations. If they do, he will then modify one such model to incorporate the life-history characteristics of spawning squid. The last stage of the project will be to compare model output to real data. Results from this project are of direct and immediate relevance to fisheries managers and may alleviate concerns that heavy fishing of forage species is depleting resources for marine predators.