alt Hacker NewsYes, seen this happen in Tasmania, Australia with crayfish, scallops and orange roughy. Each went from free-for-all to highly managed quotas within a few years. Roughy fishing stopped completely back then, don't know what the status is now.
> we don't really know much about how fish live and their overall population
Absolutely yes. Orange roughy is a good example - it was caught by trawlers when they were massed in huge balls near the surface. Easy to get a big catch quickly. Turns out this was when they were spawning, so breeding cycle was being interrupted, which led to catastrophic declines very quickly.
My understanding is that the cod fishery decline in Atlantic waters has had limited recovery because the ecological niche that the cod fish occupied has been taken over to some extent by a small shark species. The wikipedia page mentions 'trophic cascade' so larger populations of prey species but does not mention the shark takeover. Either way cutting the harvesting won't bring the fish back.