The problem was eventually somewhat solved by capturing some of the sealions and driving them down to California.
They did similar with sea otters in CA at the behest of commercial fishermen. Sea otters being smart, they mostly swam back to where they were relocated from.
While I will back up commercial fishermen regarding onerous regs, I have little sympathy for them regarding competition. If you can't fish better than a sea lion or an otter, tough potatoes.
I had to interact with commercial fishermen a bit in my job, mostly at Coast Guard meetings, and frankly, I found most of them to be big babies. They would cuss the gov up and down about regs, but then make demands like relocating entire populations of animals that competed with them. Many of them were also anti-oil and happily encouraged the gov to go after and restrict oil companies from doing their business. Honestly, they reminded me of the stereotypical "gimme gimme gimme" welfare case.