If you are talking specifically about Washington, I think you can trace much of the problem of closing obsolete fisheries to the law that mandates the WDFW to provide "healthy commercial fisheries" .Another thing, it was probably a lot easier to make the case that market hunting was the cause of game population declines. There are so many factors contributing to the decline of fish, especially salmon that it is easy for special interest groups to muddy the waters and paralyze reform.