The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) landings database is a searchable database with information on the landings of different fisheries nationwide, including the eastern oyster.

Information in this database comes from a variety of sources. Prior to 1929, commercial landings data were collected by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries through market house surveys. From 1929 through 1944, catch and effort statistics for Maryland and Virginia were derived from correspondence or interviews with captains of licensed fishing vessels, wholesale fisheries firms, and packing and canning houses. From 1944 through the present, all Maryland watermen have been required by law to maintain daily records of catch and effort and to report them to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Mandatory reporting was instituted in Virginia on January 1, 1993. Additional information for unlicensed gear were obtained as annual estimates through correspondence and personal interviews.

In 1922, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission began collecting fisheries statistics in the main stem of the Potomac River, leaving data collection in the tributaries of the Potomac River to the different states. These organizations in turn send the data (by water code, gear type, and species) to the National Marine Fisheries Service, where it is compiled annually by region.

All data from 1880 through 1977 was taken directly from Fisheries Statistics of the United States(NMFS). After 1977, the Service stopped publishing Chesapeake Bay data by species. The remainder of this database was compiled from Chesapeake Bay general water codes. Prior to 1952, Chesapeake Bay statistics were lumped by state, and included coastal bays and estuaries. From 1952 on, this database contains only Chesapeake Bay mainstem and tributary landings.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, Marine Recreational Fishery Statistics Survey (MRFSS) database provides recreational fishery statistics for all Maryland and Virginia waters, as well as other coastal states throughout the United States. Information about this survey, its history, how the survey is conducted, and the estimates it produces are also available on this site. Chesapeake Bay recreational statistics are available from this site in both summarized and detailed formats. Summarized data contain graphs and tables of annual landings or harvest data, by state and for the entire Bay. Landings are based on fish observed during the survey. Harvest is total catch in pounds, including landings (whole and fillets) and fish released dead, i.e. all losses due to fishing.

The primary goal of The Virginia Juvenile Trawl Survey is to develop indices of abundance for a number of juvenile recreationally, commercially, and otherwise ecologically important species. These indices measure the relative size of each year class for the target species. Calculation of the index is basically an average catch-per-tow computation, after the data are statistically treated to minimize the effect of extremely high and low catches.