Thread: Inshore fishing under threat?

Originally Posted by Woody

It is grim on the face of it. IMO the right of citizens to harvest a natural food source for personal family consumption should be sacrosanct. Certainly there may be sensible constraints on quantity taken but these should not be so small that the family costs incurred in fishing are above the costs of being forced to buy retail sea foods. The imposition on recreational fishers in favour of commercial fishers is unfair on private families and unacceptable in my view.

Wot you said

50 years ago, I used to take my girls friends du jour, to Takapuna beach at night, to gaze at the sea and well, shag them.

90% of the time we could watch the trawlers working up and down the Rangitoto channel. This trawling was illegal. They would do one direction, with their nav lights on, then switch off the nav lights and do 3, 4, 5 or more passes with no lights and then turn lights on and go home.

The reason I could see them, when the lights were off, is that they had lights in the cabin and cigarettes in their mouths, easy for a young man with good eyesight.

I coincidentally, had a girlfriend, whose brothers were all trawler fishermen and whose father was a, wait for it, fisheries inspector. The Dad would take all the confiscated seafood home. The Brothers would bring by-catch home. Mind you in those days, the snapper by-catch were all the size of goats. I've seen snapper that needed two guys to lift.

As a kid I could go out, on Saturday morning with Dad, off Northcote point and after an hour, bring back enough fish for us, for a couple of days and for several of our neighbours also.

Unfortunately the the commercial fishing industry is predicated on rape and pillage, maximum profit for shareholders, is the only rule they take heed of.