The Gulf supports a wide range of industrial, artisanal, and recreational fisheries operating in both U.S. and Mexican waters. Each year, these fishers are exposed to tropical storms and hurricanes that generate substantial economic losses. Yet, the pathways through which these events affect fishing activity remain poorly understood. Fishers may be disrupted if (i) hazardous conditions limit access to fishing grounds, (ii) storms damage private vessels and public infrastructure, or (iii) extreme winds and waves affect habitats and redistribute target species. Here, we combine millions of vessel-tracking observations from U.S.- and Mexican-flagged vessels with wind fields for 62 named storms that traversed the Gulf between 2012 and 2022 to estimate changes in fishing effort before, during, and after hurricane exposure. Using this unique daily gridded dataset of fishing effort and storm-force wind exposure (>33 m/s), we uncover three patterns. First, fishing effort in exposed grid cells significantly declines three days before exposure to storm-force winds, peaks at -50% on the day of landfall (relative to effort a week before; p < 0.01), and returns to baseline 10-12 days after winds subside. Second, a 10% increase in wind speed reduces fishing hours by about 10.1% and the number of fishing vessels by about 18.5% (p < 0.01). Third, effort overshoots the historical baseline 12–15 days after exposure, suggesting compensatory behavior. In tandem, these results reveal short-lived but economically meaningful disruptions to fishing activity, highlighting how extreme weather perturbs human use of ocean space and may interact with ecological recovery dynamics. Our results may inform work seeking to understand how fishers adapt to hurricanes and highlight the need for measures that enhance safety and accelerate post-storm recovery in coastal fisheries.