Question Author
"The combined EU fishing fleets land about 6 million tonnes of fish per year, of which about 3 million tonnes are from UK waters. The UK's share of the overall EU fishing catch is only 750,000 tonnes." wiki
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make DTCwordfan. Harping back to half a century ago and more like shaneystar, the fishing industry has moved on since then.
What happened was that under the EU policy, individual fisherman, like individual dairy farmers, were given 'quotas' which many soon realised were a negotiable item and when approached by the large Spanish fishing companies (for example) offering them cash sums for their quotas, many saw it as an opportunity to get out of the business, grab the money and retire, which is what they did.