A recent highly cited paper from this journal develops a model predicting maximum sustainable yield (<InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MSY$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MSY</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation>) of a fishery using the historical maximum catch (<InlineEquation ID="IEq2"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MaxCatch$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MaxCatch</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation>). The model is parameterized with a small sample of fisheries from the United States, and is subsequently applied globally to estimate the benefits of fishery recovery. That empirical relationship has been adopted for many subsequent high-profile analyses. Unfortunately, the analysis suffers from two important oversights: (1) because the model is non-linear, it suffers from “retransformation bias” and therefore the results significantly understate <InlineEquation ID="IEq3"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MSY$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MSY</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> and (2) the analysis is parameterized from of a very limited data set and so generalizability of the fitted empirical relationship between <InlineEquation ID="IEq4"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MSY$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MSY</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> and <InlineEquation ID="IEq5"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MaxCatch$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MaxCatch</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> to global fisheries is questionable. Here, we rectify both oversights and provide an updated estimate of the relationship between <InlineEquation ID="IEq6"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MSY$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MSY</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> and <InlineEquation ID="IEq7"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$MaxCatch$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mrow> <mi mathvariant="italic">MaxCatch</mi> </mrow> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation>. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014