The good old small-scale fishery

In the 1980s the National Fisherman, an American fisheries journal had held a                  column written  by an East Coast fisherman Capt. Perc Sane. At that time the governmental fisheries management was much less wide-ranging than nowadays. Nevertheless, the       various limitations, including allowing catching only a single species, have been already         practiced on the West Coast. In 1983, Perc Sane, visited the West Coast and was stunned     by the various restrictions affecting small-scale fishery there. He described his impressions in    his column, and explained why the less management at the East Coast makes more           sense. Here're some extracts (Courtesy: National Fisherman):

Perc Sane goes West  …//…   The way it is, a Maine fisherman has to lobster a little       in the summer, dig a few clams n’worms in the fall, jig some smelts through ice in         the winter n’gillnet some alewives in the spring. When he ain’t busy with these,            he catches a few rock crabs, drags mussels, seines a bunch of herrin’, pots a few     snails, rakes irish moss, picks spruce gum n’snips the ends of balsam trees for  Christmas wreaths, which is called tipping. …//…

…//…  In Maine, when she ain’t so good, we drive our lobster boats right up in the    shore alders on a high tite n’say t’hell with it. Take off the CB maybe, n’let her sit     there ‘till things look sunnier. …//…

This is an excellent description of some of the old times small-scale/artisanal fisheries that in a few words explains why they were sustainable and why they wouldn't overfish their       resources. Such inherent flexibility allowed fishermen to move between the various stocks,        or stop fishing, whenever their yields went down below a certain level, and to fish in          accordance with the nature's shifting seasons. How wise and effective used to be               those traditional autochthonic management systems, that followed the ways and seasonality      of nature, moved among fishing sites and times and never tried to curb catches.

But today's fishery managers consider such flexibility just another bygone along with the whole traditional management, which is one reason why many coastal fisheries are being over-regulated to death.