<p>With limited resources, improving the economic efficiency of the fishery industry has become a key objective for the future development of China’s high-quality fishery industry. Smart fishery has become a major development trend driven by the digital economy. In this paper, based on the inter-provincial panel data from 2003 to 2022, the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method is applied to measure the development level of the smart fishery, and the super-efficient SBM model is used to evaluate the economic efficiency of the fishery. The results show that: (1) smart fishery significantly improves the economic efficiency of fishery; (2) talent concentration, industrial integration and pollution emission efficiency can play a mediating role and significantly improve the economic efficiency of fishery; (3) government investment can not only enhance the direct effect of smart fishery, but also play a moderating role by strengthening the facilitating role of mediating variables. Therefore, to realize the high-quality development of the fishery industry, it is necessary to increase government investment, enhance technological innovation, attract high-quality talents, promote the flow of knowledge and technology, promote the deep integration of information technology with the upstream and downstream industries of the fishery industry, pay attention to environmental protection and green technological innovation, and enhance the ecological value of the fishery industry.</p>