I'm trying to be nice but truthfully I'm shocked at your question. Your position is basically if commercial had an 8" minimum size, they would be forced to harvest 8" fish. Not true.
They target and harvest fish that bring the higher market prices. That will always be larger fish than 14". Minimumm size that is four to five inches lower than recreational is not an imposition at all, it provides flexibility to the commercial sector if they choose to harvest smaller fish for whatever reason. Reality is they're not, you seem to think they are. If that were true, why have commercial landings by age gone from harvesting predominantly 2-3 year-old fish twenty years ago to predominantly 3-5 year old fish today? 3 to 5-year-old fish, male or female, are not 14". Landing weights over the last 20 years subsequent to the 14" minimum being put in place have doubled for commercial. So if you think of 14" fish on average weighs 2 1/2 lbs., you need to let me know where you're fishing. Commercial operators are harvesting larger age class fish because that's where the higher market value is. Why do you think ex- vessel values have increased even though quotas have been cut. 14" fish are collateral damage in the commercial fishery. All you need to do is reference the dead discard levels in the 57th stock assessment I referenced earlier on observed commercial trawls and it'll illustrate the carnage taking place from commercial operations. Because commercial concerns choose to harvest older age groups in spite of the 14" minimum they have, that's called selective harvest. Select to retain the larger fish and select to toss the smaller less valuable fish back dead. Nobody is forcing them to keep the smaller fish and I assure you they're not.