I must have missed something. If there are government restrictions, why is there a shortage of fish in the first place? Didn't they work? I suspect that given that every nation tends to make its own rules, it only takes one stinker to overfish a "public" area while others practice restraint. "Tragedy of the Commons" and all that.

Technological innovations in fishing have allowed the fishing industry to avoid the normal contraction that would result from a resource shortage, but this wouldn't work forever without subsidies.

Ideally, there should now be fewer fishermen, and fish should be more expensive.