Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories are intended to support efficient fishing operations, yet their correspondence with realized fishing activity remains uncertain in data-limited and compliance-variable settings. We evaluated the spatiotemporal alignment between PFZ and observed fishing intensity in Indonesia’s Fisheries Management Area (FMA)-711 from 2017 to 2023 using AIS, VMS, SAR vessel detections, and VIIRS Boat Detection products. Monthly PFZ indicators were obtained from national fisheries sources, and all datasets were harmonized to a 0.01° × 0.01° grid for consistent comparison. PFZ trend testing showed largely stable conditions across the study period (non-significant in 2,298 grids), with increasing trends concentrated in nearshore waters (131 grids total: 5 at 99%, 54 at 95%, and 72 at 90% confidence) and scattered offshore decreases. Fishing intensity exhibited persistent clustering in territorial waters and high-use corridors, with pronounced sensor-dependent differences consistent with coverage and compliance. Grid-wise zero-lag correlation indicated generally weak PFZ–fishing relationships across most of FMA-711, with statistically significant positive associations limited to localized areas (e.g., parts of territorial waters and around Natuna in some sensors) and negative or non-significant relationships elsewhere (including along the Kalimantan coast in several grids). Overall, PFZ signals frequently did not coincide with observed fishing effort, underscoring the need to jointly consider environmental suitability, operational constraints, and monitoring asymmetries when evaluating PFZ effectiveness for fisheries management and enforcement. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.