In the past half‐century, fishing in one regional part of the Baltic Sea, the Stockholm Archipelago, has almost disappeared due to falling fish abundance, especially of herring ( Clupea harengus ). By examining published observations and archived material on historical fishing patterns, we found evidence of a remarkably continuous high level of fish supply throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite variation in fish recruitment, high abundance of mammal predators and high fishing intensities. We observe that fishing was part of a true market, i.e., fishing acted as an opportunistic predator, abandoning specific target species at low abundance and fishing on present surpluses. Our study contributes to advancing historical marine ecology and adds to critiques of explanations of declining and collapsing fisheries in terms of inevitable ‘tragedies of the commons’. Our observations of historical management approaches contrast with contemporary Swedish fisheries management and may inform a different strategy towards achieving sustainable fisheries in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere.