Which means in the next bidding round the fishermen would bid somewhere between the double they were charged, and could still apparently have a working businesses with, and what the middleman bid.

All it means is that they were expecting too large profit margins and someone called their bluff.

Has this been tried? It's been tried with housing (that's the current housing system).

No idea. But it is quite similar to how public transport works for archipelago ferries in Scandinavia.

15 year contracts when large investments are required. Otherwise 5-10 years.

And you get a ”quota” for a guaranteed traffic to run for that period based on the requirements in the contract.

Just took the same idea and applied to fishing, to prevent the ”legacies” from monopolizing it while giving the public the income of their shared resources.

A government contract isn't the same as a rights system. Presumably anyone else is also allowed to set up a ferry?

And anyone would be allowed to bid on the fishing quotas?

What’s the difference between a ferry and a fishing boat?

The difference is that there isn't a limited number of ferry licenses. They aren't rivalrous. Sure the government is paying for one to make sure there's at least one, but anyone could.

Of course they are rivalrous. Contracts change, boats get laid up and people are forced to change employers.

You can imagine on popular routes where you get to keep the proceeds that you instead pay for the right to operate it.

What’s the difference to paying for being allowed a quota to fish in the waters said ferry service runs a passenger service in?

Why would there be a limited number of ferry licenses?

Limited port capacity? Erosion? Limit disturbance of wild life?

Either way it is a public resource. On one side access to a countries fishing grounds to make money from it. On the other side access to a countries tax money to make money from it.

I get a feeling that you think fishermen should have some special heritage rights guaranteeing large profit margins rather than having to pay the public for the access to a shared resource.

Iceland already has fishing fees, which is effectively a tax to use the national resource.

If you introduce capitalism into the equation you are just opening the doors for the rich to exploit the workers in a systemic manner, and the workers in this case are fishermen.

Just do a standard fishing license you apply for and pay a nominal fee which can be refunded after some conditions are met, and then hand out quota evenly (or based on capabilities, history, etc.). Iceland already has a system similar to that called Strandveiðar for small fishing boats during a small window.

OR (and I like this better) ban trawling.