>>17904095 (OP)
They did fish. Issue was that you couldn't sell the fish for currency when no one else had money, ports and easy to access coasts weren't common and the trees used to create fishing vessels faced additional pressure due to being used fkr other purposes.
>>17904410
Also through out the colonial era the whole "we are starving while shipping a ton of crops for exports" was unfortunately super common in the colonial years. The Irish were the first of many subjected the phenomenon.