Thread: Eugenie Sage wants to Ban Whitebaiting

Originally Posted by Lucky

It’s all tip of the wedge stuff that’s scary , same as the firearm fuckup , I don’t agree with any of it but some guys do exploit the whitebait far beyond hunting and gathering for family and friends .
She will want to get rid of the Trout and Salmon next ....

UMMMM HELLO they have already mentioned that one...the twigs n twitterers have at least.

Yes they want five freshwater fishies removed from our rivers,all being a threat to our native types.
Wake up chaps..our Government are only puppets to the powers that want these agenda's put in place and it's global.
All none native species are on the hit list. As for the West Coast well there aint a hellova lot left here now that they haven't shut down or stopped us from doing. knee deep poison on top of all that mmmmmmm,aint lookin great.

Originally Posted by berg243

dont worry eugenie will get the west coast how she wants it so you can only take photos and leave footprints.

Yeah and then they will ban cameras (hate pics) track down who left the foot prints and scone em eh lol

Interesting responses. For the past few years people, including many whitebaiters, have been suggesting that whitebait populations are under threat and have been asking for measures such as banning sock nets.
Now that a government is prepared to do something about it they get criticized. Who'd be a politician.

I think if the fishery is to be further regulated the best way to do it is to simply shorten the season. This would affect everybody equally.

Originally Posted by Backcountry Bob

Interesting responses. For the past few years people, including many whitebaiters, have been suggesting that whitebait populations are under threat and have been asking for measures such as banning sock nets.
Now that a government is prepared to do something about it they get criticized. Who'd be a politician.

I think if the fishery is to be further regulated the best way to do it is to simply shorten the season. This would affect everybody equally.

I actually agree. Shorter seasons will work better than anything.

They just gotta stop the customary take bullshit.
I know people that catch shitloads during the season then get a friend or family member to fish their stand and slay it well after the season.

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I fish the Waikato river a lot. 4 years ago we had the best season in living memory, how was that possible in a so called declining fishery?. They did a study a few years ago by catching a whole lot of whitebait at the river mouth which they then dyed a different colour. They then with cooperation from the local baiters found out how much was re-caught as it moved up stream, that ended up being about 10%. I get that this % of the bait that goes up stream which is caught may vary from river to river it still shows that a hell of a lot beats us.
What a lot of you that don't fish ( but are more than happy to buy a fritter off a food truck ) realise is that not only do whitebait run at night (when we are not allowed to fish for it) but it also runs for most of the year. There is this huge assumption that we are fishing for it at the only time it runs which is totally false. I have seen huge runs moving upstream on the opening of Duck shooting and Boxing day!.
Habitat protection and improved water quality will do more to improve runs than anything else. There are already lots of restrictions and rules placed on whitebaiters and these rules are working well.
I cannot remember his name but there is a whitebait expert from Canterbury Uni that has been interviewed a TV in the past, he is a record about all this whitebait going extinct in 10 years blar blar blar is wrong. On the Waikato catches are not declining.

Remember who is telling you that the resource is being over fished...............think about it.............. Its the same lefty, sandal wearing, pot reformist vegans that took our guns! The true experts say that is BS. Here on the Waikato river we do get seasonal variation on the amount caught but on average catches are holding steady.

Maybe Ms Sage should simply change the law to permanently fence off 20m each side of any water way and ban effluent being discharged into waterways. Still that would be in the too hard basket requiring a modicum of commonsense.

Farmers are doing their bit, they get grief about dirty dairy etc and to be fair historically there was some truth to that. I remember growing up on a dairy farm and watching the effluent from the yard just running down the drain. However farmers have stepped up and all that is long gone. The change in the water quality of the lower Waikato in the last 30 years has been dramatic, when I was a kid a times over the summer the water would literally stink, to the point you would hesitate to let the gun dog to swim in it let alone yourself.
Now while there is still more sediment in the water than is ideal of which a fair bit of is coming out of the Waipa river( even that is getting better ) it at least is safe to swim in!. If anything the whitebait catches from what the oldtimers have told me (one of which was a buyer for the whitebait factory when it was running) have improved. However one thing that has dropped off is the smelt or parorai (spelling) runs.

Just out of interest could someone from up in the North of Zealand tell me ...is all this whitebait shit only goin on here on the
West Coast of the South Island or is the same bullshit goin on up North as well?
Just that I have not gone into it at any depth.

Nah all over, no way they would get away with just picking on you guys. However your regulations and season length are a lot different.

possibly the most EFFECTIVE way to shorten a season to give more a chance to get past and breed (same goes for salmon,and in past has been hinted for game birds) is to keep season length the same but limit the days you can take...eg no take on Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday.....now that would really piss off folk who are into it full time/commercially but it has three major advantages. #1 the little guy can still have a 4 day outing #2 the spread of successful breeders is spread out over the whole season(so that net right across the river doesnt stop say a weeks worth in middle of big run) #3 this is real winner...it makes it piece of piss to police ANYONE fishing on those 3 days will be lynched by others who stick to rules ,if the powers that be dont get to them first.

What is not being put into the Public domain is the fact that huge amounts of whitebait run up their rivers long before and well after the legal season,,,thats a fact for here on the Coast,,they are not being fished out.
The people that want to change, make up new laws or stop whitebaiting will do the dirty and turn people against people with nothing more than propaganda and bullshit meetings.

Originally Posted by doinit

What is not being put into the Public domain is the fact that huge amounts of whitebait run up their rivers long before and well after the legal season,,,thats a fact for here on the Coast,,they are not being fished out.
The people that want to change, make up new laws or stop whitebaiting will do the dirty and turn people against people with nothing more than propaganda and bullshit meetings.

Never forget catching cod & jock Stewarts in Milford sound in January they were chocka full of bait .

This guy researched whitebait for decades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26pex7UzRgw


Interesting to see that certain snow fed rivers on the coast e.g arawhata have a predominance of certain bait species, I wonder if DOC plan to shut down certain rivers also some evidence in here that shortening the tail end of the season might help with later spawning species.