Abstract: The East Dongting Lake is the largest lake group of Dongting Lake and one of the important wetland nature reserves in China, which has important ecological value. In order to investigate the current situation of fish resources in East Dongting Lake in Hunan Province in the early stage of lifting the fishing ban, an echosounder (EY60,200 KHZ) was used to detect fish resources in East Dongting Lake in May and August, 2021. The results showed that at the daily scale, the density of fish at night in May and August was higher than that at day, and there was a significant difference in the density between day and night in August (F=4.498, P<0.05), but there was no significant difference in the intensity of target between May and August (P>0.05); At the seasonal scale, the average density of fish in May was significantly higher than that in August (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in fish target strength (P>0.05). At the spatial scale, the distribution of fish density was uneven. Fish mainly distributed in northeast lake area and east Lake area in May, while fish mainly distributed in east Lake area and Lujiao area in August. In the vertical distribution, fish mainly distributed in the upper and middle layers of water in May, and in the lower and middle layers of water in August. The total number of fish in August was 7.69×108  and 1.78×109 ind. by using the resource density and volume method, which increased exponentially compared with the historical data. This paper is the first to study the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of fish in East Dongting Lake in the early stage of fishing ban. The increase of fish resources in East Dongting Lake will provide data basis for the protection and rational utilization of fishery resources in East Dongting Lake after fishing ban.