Poppa, I agree with your view & comment re: bonk.
I go out every weekend, to any rock pile I think might work. Most often I catch a lot of fish, sometimes, I'm just chukkin' lead (Oooo, I shouldn't have said that!)
I use circle hooks for bait & swallow-ables, regular hooks on hard baits. I mash my barbs on every hook, no matter my target, I let 'em back real careful, and wait till they swim before letting go.
I don't net, nor bash them around on the rocks. I don't have a camera, and I don't care if someone thinks I'm full of it... "No Pict... No Proof!".. So what? When I walk in the woods, I actually do try to keep on rock, not "biomass", as much as is possible. I bring out that other @#$%^7's garbage, and smile a hello to all I meet. I even tolerate the non-stop "Watchafishinfor's" with a smile. And I love the one... "You can't catch nuddin wid that liddle thang!"
If you take a big fish... Congrats! You bonk a big one... Congrats!.. Kill to kill??.. Nah, I'm not keen on that. Would I like to land a big one?, You bet. But, I also hear the 40#-60# taste and eat better, so that's what I'd prefer to land... But, that's me.
If you really want to puke-up over commercial fishing, take a look at a YOU Tube on tuna fishing. Sheeit, they may as well drop bombs & rake-in the remains. The entire recreational fleet in the US couldn't do in a year what that one boat did in an afternoon.
Exciting... A lot of work... livelihoods at stake... but...
The regrettable apparent details on maintaining a healthy ocean are not dissimilar to a healthy forest... You need a healthy mixed biomass of species. In the forest, planting alders & maples alongside firs force the fir tall, straight & knot-free, while feeding off the detrius of the deciduous trees & bush. The animal pop diversifies.
Same for the oceans... you need herring, sardines, pilchard and all manner of offal to feed the chain from plankton to sharks. Blather over halibut all you want, but without caring for the whole chain the top dog starves. (of course now I'm off onto prawn dredgers & tuna-ranchers...)
As far as your acknowlegement regarding "heritage-issues", if they use their cedar-bark rope and stick traps, wooden spears and bone hooks... hollowed-log canoes, and I'll accept heritage & "way"... otherwise, they're just another commercial, with the same... "we're not guilty", and "way of life", and "rights", as we all are.
It's more like we recreationals are extremely limited in how & what we do to catch... a very damned few fish... 2-4 per angler, annual max creel, no sockeye, no ling, no wild...
I read the stats on Georgia Straits Steelhead commercial bycatch on last year's DFO site (now hidden)... they landed 5 steelhead, yet I went to Safeway and saw 8 on ice, with another 5 at Thrifty's... Hmmm!... DFO... Dollars For Oligopolies! Like economists... highly educated, overpaid to guess based on theories founded on guesswork, paid for by those having vested interests in their favoured answers.
In line with what Wolf stated, a different twist, but similar... When asked about her jobs-creation plan for BC, a wannabe Premiere!, she stated..."we have to think about jobs!... We have to consider the Peace (river dist) providing power to Vancouver!"... Huh??? The really ugly thing about that should concern every one of us... The media are so stupid as to air that quote!... WITHOUT EVEN ASKING "WHAT THE SNOT-DRIPPING SHASBOT DID YOU MEAN???"... "Sea-Kittens" buy media attention... and votes. They angle their stories to populist mush-brained, media-fearing, zipper-heads. Pop-the-top insert story here, close & out it comes as policy... Magic.
That's how, after our Vanc-Enviro-dude with a "Foundation", stated the only way to conservation is by tripling your energy costs, so our government supercharged energy-costs, leading to a near-double of our food costs due to increased farm & transportation levies...
We who now starve...reducing our excessive consumption of agricultural produce...shivering in the dark, are now proudly conserving our resources... G*d that feels good... doesn't it?
Imagine, burning basic food in cars to go from home to an LA blockbuster at the Bijoux, and the deforestation, chemicals & run-off to create new corn plantations. Frankly, I'd prefer my Wild Turkey Rare Breed $25 cheaper.
If someone wants to sqawk about a damned-few fish, let's roll-up our sleeves and start on page one, line one... and 'trash' politically-correct before the first word.
It takes one heck of a lot of effort to scrub clean what you can't touch.
Salutations.