Here is what I know.
Personality differances
Commercial fisherman, fish for money, fish are money, and any regulation is percieved as resticting their income. Each and every fish they can catch has a dollar value on it. I lived it for my entire youth. Fishing with my old man sucked, plain and simple, no fun allowed. I will never forget the "60 Minutes" episode when Ed Bradley went aboard a Glocester dragger out to the Grand banks. It was the last trip out before federal regulation would close the cod and haddock grounds during the spawn. As they approached the grounds, and the captain was bitching about the closure, and how much money he was making due to the dwindling supply, a school of squid appeared on the sonar. The captain tapped the screen and said to Bradley, and I quote, " See That. That is squid,... When the cod and haddock are gone, people will eat squid."
Recreational fisherman fish for many reasons, and none of them involve money, or an income. We fish for pleasure or to put a fillet on the dinner table once in a while. Anyone that says they are helping the family budget by fishing is full of it, The actual cost of a flounder from a study I read once after expenses is somewhere around 10 bucks a pound.
The commercial fishing industry will tie up any and all legislation designed to protect dwindling stocks with high dollar lawyers for years before any implamentation can be passed. They use the heritage argument as a trump card. I come from a construction back ground, maybe I should use my heritage to get the feds to build houses because I need work.
The bad apples
Many commercial fisherman and recreational anglers will sell fish outside of the legal limitations. I know this as I have been witness to it. I know for a fact that some, and I don't mean a low percentage, will catch their legal quota, turn them in and return to the location of success. Boat another legal quota and sell them direct to restaurants, fish mongers, and the general public. A great number of recreational anglers will do the same, justifying their actions as off setting the family budget, while keeping the kids involved in healthy outdoor activities. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than the look on someones face when I refuse the $50.00 I have been offered for a Bass as I release it back to the water. It would be easy for me to make over a grand a week selling Bass to restaurants that I could sell them too through the kitchen door. These same restaurants support the illegal sales of commercially caught Stripers, undocumented against the legal quotas every day. Quotas are in place to protect stocks and insure the healthy population of any species. Most recreational fisherman understand this as it is intended, virtually every Commercial fisherman I know, and talk to, see's quotas as something to prohibit them from making a living to the potential they can relize. Something they need to work around.
I think I will stop here, my blood pressure goes up every time I start on this issue.
Remember, I lived it.
God is Great, Beer is Good, People are crazy.