 The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, IOTC, reports incomplete data on large pelagic fisheries in the Indian Ocean. This leads to misleading conclusions about the state of the fishery and hinders efforts to manage it sustainably. To address this issue, we reconstructed catches of large pelagic species from 1950 to 2020 using data from 42 countries operating 5 major gear types. The reconstructions revealed that distant water fishing fleets dominated large-scale industrial fishing until they were gradually replaced by fleets from Indian Ocean rim countries. Additionally, our analysis showed that the reported data underestimates the total catches by 30%, which is mainly due to extensive discarding practices associated with longlining and gill netting. Furthermore, the reported data does not accurately reflect the taxonomic composition of the catches as it fails to capture important patterns and trends. Finally, we found that sharks continue to be under-reported, making up 51% of total unreported landings and discards in 2020. Therefore, we recommend increased observer coverage and greater support from all member countries to improve. This article was authored by Christina N. Hydrick, Christina N. Hydrick, Jessica Jamie Wake and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.