yes and no. Its partly a bug, I think, in the sheer number of them and the floating ones out above the water surface. This seems to be related to the new fishing updates and likely will get cleaned up someday.

but fish have always jumped and washed ashore to be picked up and you have always been able to modify the terrain to make this more likely and farm up some without a rod. That seems intentional, at a lesser degree. And I think the new fish sizes has something to do with all this -- they are so big now they get landed easier cause water not deep enough. They used to be at the biggest about the size of your foot or maybe your leg. Now, we have THIS:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2930140238
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2911112831