GLOUCESTER, Mass. – He started fishing at age 15, following his father to the teeming waters off northern New England and expecting it was the only thing he’d ever do for a living.

Now, Lou Williams, 49, is wondering how much money is enough to get him to leave a life he loved.

A fishing industry group is devising a buyout plan to give fishermen cash for their permits and a permanent exit from the business.

With the toughest restrictions New England has ever faced set to take effect this summer, and even tougher cuts possible by 2009, the goal is to reduce fishing pressure while giving fishermen a graceful way to leave.

“I think people are looking for the opportunity to get out, rather than be put out,” said Jackie Odell of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an industry group that helped design the plan.

The proposed program would be funded by a tax on fishermen who gamble that reducing their numbers will allow stocks to rebound and make the industry more profitable.

Williams, a gillnet fisherman with two boats based in Gloucester, said he hasn’t decided if he would take a buyout. But the father of four, with two in college, said dollars, not sentiment, will drive his decision. He’s not optimistic about the future of the fishery, which he believes has been crippled by pollution.

“We’re the last hunters left,” he said, “and right now I feel like I’m a buffalo hunter.”

The ad hoc industry group that designed the plan has scheduled 10 meetings to explain it this summer around New England, New York and New Jersey. The first meeting was Tuesday in Gloucester.

Odell said the industry put the plan together because it realized it needed options amid ever-tightening regulations.

Since 1996, fishing days have dropped from 116 to about 46, and the industry says groundfish revenues fell 30 percent between 2001 and 2005.

More cuts are scheduled for late summer after a 2005 assessment concluded key groundfish stocks, such as cod and flounder, weren’t recovering quickly enough to meet federal targets. The new regulations, which the industry is battling in court, leave some fishermen just a couple of dozen fishing days per year by counting each single day at sea as two days.

In addition, a major stock reassessment in 2008 likely will result in further cuts by 2009, Odell said.