The rate of change is so great, I can’t imagine what things will be like in 100 years.
It may be that we will always have atavistic (throwback) impulses towards things like hunting, but quite a lot of these impulses, like settling a dispute with a punch in the mouth are, if not extinguished, outlawed.
I’m inclined to think angling will be much more tightly controlled, if not banned. The general trend amongst western publics is towards accepting the scientific evidence that fish do suffer pain, and the moral argument that all wildlife, fish included, deserves protection from unnecessary suffering. (Hypocrisy on that score, given the broader environmental degradation caused by the way we live, is a separate matter.)I can only see these ideas becoming becoming the background norm , and replacing the convenient myth that “fish don’t feel pain”.
Catch and release, which you might think represents the enlightened face of fishing, in which fish are treated with care and returned to reproduce, is already banned in some European countries: catching fish for fun is not deemed sufficient justification, and the stance is, if we’re smart enough to put them back, we should be smart enough not to try and catch them!
I’ve been a lifelong angler; I can’t imagine not fishing, I don’t feel uncomfortable with defending fishing and I’ll continue to do that – there are good arguments in favour of angling. One would be that, whatever stress an angler might inflict on an individual fish, anglers in general are the only group who actively promote the continuing wellbeing of fish in general in many waters. But my guess is that we’ll be swimming against the tide.