I have lived on the coast most of my life and know many commercial boatmen and done some myself part time which does not make me an expert but I have followed the swings and lows of this debate for years.
No one has a god given right but fish are a food source and the catching and selling of them is natural, its been happening for a long time!
I have never understood why Bass are as threatened as some species by netting or trawling. Most netting and trawling takes place in the open sea whereas bass inhabit rocky areas where its not so easy to trawl or net giving them more chance than say Cod and Herring.
However, all sea fish are under threat and I recognize its the same for Bass. I think pleasure angling restrictions make little difference, the amount of anglers who regularly sea fish is small these days, a lot have given up because there is little to catch, ever decreasing Mackerel shoals, Whiting no more than 6/10 inches etc etc. Its only the small fish that get through the nets and that's all you catch from the shore. Big Cod are very rare but you can still catch a decent Bass off a good shore mark because they hang around rocky areas and escape the nets. However, I know of one big shoal of Bass detected off Beachy Head and netted out by commercial boatmen so, I do know its a problem not too be ignored.
During the war, commercial fishing almost came to a standstill and for a few years after it was a bonanza especially for Cod which proves leaving them alone to breed like mad as Cliff said does work.
We have more and more complicated rules being imposed, hard to understand' hard to police and easy enough to ignore as Peter has pointed out. A complete ban on one species for 2/3 years rotated in turn for all food species would be easier to regulate and enforce and would work. Commercial boatmen could still get a living and feed us which I could think of as a God given right. Aligned with more and bigger nurseries, also easy to regulate, enforce and maintain would also be a very good long term answer.
I am afraid these ever more complicated rules, although well intentioned and although they will make a difference are not good enough in my opinion. Everyone's arguing and trying to be too clever making it over complicated; You only have to read Martins article to see this; some rotating bans per species and more good nursery areas I think would work far better and more importantly easy to understand, regulate and police.
I just thought I would add, restrictions, net, size, fish size restrictions, quotas all started in the 60's. 50/60
years later; it has made no big noticeable bit of difference, in fact the problem is worse for many species. They are not working-- Nurseries and some kinds of species bans have been proven to work.
