Those hunters or fishermen were not necessarily evil but they were necessarily ignorant, and unwilling to relinquish unwholesome actions. And there is no need to ask:"If everyone abandoned killing, what about our food?" Such question is not tenable since there will be always ignorant people do it.
But the real question is, now we understand that killing is unwholesome as taught by the Enlightened One, should we continue to do so? Should we follow the way of crowd or follow the way of Buddha?
- If you are not a Buddhist, then of course you are entitled to your opinion.
- But if you are into Buddha's teachings and intended to follow it, then you should make haste to abandon such pernicious mindset.
- But if you think you wanted to challenge Buddha's teachings here, trying to pollute the teachings by saying "killing living beings is wholesome in Buddhism"... Then your point is to be rejected firmly without hesitation.
Furthermore, it is your view here, thinking that act of killing is wholesome and respectable (even meritorious), and tried to justify it by using Buddhism, necessarily evil.
You should abandon that idea, stop killing for food if you intended to follow Lord Buddha's teachings. If you are omnivore, of course you can eat permissible meat (according to Jivaka Suttanta) or even replace protein intake with other food source. We are not living in ancient civilization anymore. Options are always available.
But, if you insist with that view and keep using Buddhism as a justification or support for that view, it will be bad kamma. And our Master, Gotama the Sammasambuddha said in Dhammapada: