Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has been used to estimate the presence and spatial distribution of phonating target organisms detected by hydrophones. Due to its cost-effectiveness and non-invasiveness, PAM is becoming a promising approach to studying the spatiotemporal dynamics of large groups in response to environmental changes. However, conventional PAM faces significant constraints in identifying the distribution of vocalising organisms mostly because of the limited number of hydrophones. Here, we extend the traditional sound propagation model for targeting a collectively vocalising group and propose a state-space model that estimates the group location and size with a limited number of hydrophones. These developments overcome the aforementioned limitations. As an empirical demonstration, we applied the proposed approach to the white croaker (Pennahia argentata) that collectively vocalises during its breeding period. The estimated location of the acoustic group centre exhibited fluctuations across days perpendicularly to the shoreline, and this fluctuation was related to tidal conditions. Moreover, the proposed approach revealed temporal variations in acoustic group size with a 10-minute resolution, showing drastic fluctuations during the breeding season and exhibiting a sensitive response to changes in water temperature. In addition, the peak timing of a chorus shifted earlier as the spawning season progressed and was negatively correlated with the rate of tidal change. These findings provided a possibility of novel biological insights such as a fish breeding strategy to efficiently transport their eggs to their nursery grounds. This approach enables a long-term and comprehensive assessment of biological status and effective resource management by spatiotemporally fine-scale predictions of future distribution and abundance. We need to note that the ground truth of the croakers’ distribution should be compared with the present results so that reliability should be evaluated.