I have been a commercial fisherman and charter boat captain on the Chesapeake bay for over 50 years. In that time I have seen a precipitous decline in  stocks of crabs, oysters, and finfish.  One of the things I have learned through personal observation and paying attention to scientific studies is the complex inter-relation and  abundance of bay resources.  

For many years I have trotlined crabs near James Island at the mouth of the little 
Choptank River in Dorchester County. In this area from mid-summer on I could always observe vast schools of juvenile menhaden rippling the water surface. These "peanut bunker" provided basic forage and nutrition for rockfish, bluefish, sea trout, osprey, and many other prey species higher up the food chain. In the last 25 years there has been a constant decline in these schools of "alewives" which has correlated with the expansion of the purse seine fishery in Virginia. 
Where there used to be hundreds and even thousands of acres of these schools of peanut bunker now there a only tiny scattered patches of them working the surface. On many days, no peanut bunker can be observed in this area at all.  The disappearance of the bay's keystone forage species has an undeniable domino effect on all the other bay species.

Another thing I have learned in my long years of working the bay is that sensible harvest regulations, while annoying to us watermen, are a must if we are to have anything left for future generations. If commercial fishing is to survive in the future, it must operate in tandem with meaningful catch limits. Otherwise, constant advances in gear technology will outpace the ability of nature to replenish itself. 

Meaningful harvest restrictions on the purse seine industry will not by itself bring back the bay, but it will go a long way toward saving what we have left, and eventually allow all the effected species, including the watermen, to recover.