No:

perl -le "$_=shift; m/fish(.*?)$/ and print $1" "one fish two fish thr
+ee fish"
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gives

 two fish three fish
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.*? will match as little as necessary, but it will not match as little as possible. The fish will still match at the leftmost position. Then, the .*? will match as little as necessary to make the match succeed, which still is the rest of the string.