Yet commercial cray fishermen disagree.
Mark Wheeler, spokesman for the CRA2 (an area that extends from Waipu north of Auckland to East Cape) commercial fishermen, said Legasea's "poll" of 800 people had no scientific basis, had not been peer reviewed, and was a collection of opinions which didn't make it fact.
"Somehow, Scott Macindoe has seen fit to bypass the normal scientific process carefully set up by MPI to provide fair and balanced information for fisheries management", Mr Wheeler said.
"Mr Macindoe clearly prefers to run some kind of overblown vox pop, then go bleating to the media about how it supports his conclusion that the fishing ain't what it used to be. This is no way to manage a fishery, or anything else. To then blame MPI, commercial fishermen, global warming, and everyone else except themselves; is advocating a kind of resource management anarchy."
He said fishermen felt they were the only ones actively rebuilding the CRA2 stocks to a more healthy level.
He stated the industry wants fisheries managed "by science not politics".
A spokesperson for MPI said the ministry knew the area "requires attention".
"We understand that LegaSea is impatient for the fishery to recover to its former abundance - we are too, and are already working to get there."
The spokesperson said a scientific survey of the area found that crayfish stocks were low.
"Our immediate response was to reduce the commercial catch limit by 36 tonnes (15 per cent) to bring the crayfish back.
"Since then we've been monitoring the fishery and have heard more concerns from tangata whenua and others about low crayfish numbers, so we've decided to bring the next scientific assessment forward to this year."