First, I don't see fishing as recreational or commercial. I see dead fish. Dead fish, by definition, don't spawn. Somehow, being killed by an angler is not somehow nobler than being killed in gillnet or seine or taken in the aquarium trade.

My understanding of the literature is that, on a worldwide basis, MPAs have been and are successful in putting more fish in the water.

When one considers rockfish, I think that their life history needs to be understood. A fish that lives 100-200 years, spawning every year or so after maturity, likely is not often successful. Maybe once a decade, once every 20 years are the environmental conditions conducive to a "good spawn". It's like the folks who want to see salmon fishing closed for a year or 4 and expect that would bring recovery. Or, the folks who see one good return and "Eureka, recovery".

We have dug a hole in our natural resources for over a century. Looking at a couple of years for solutions is not, to my mind, logical.