Geoff Thomas: Respect lets fishery thrive

Waimana returns his Kahawai to the sea. Photo / Geoff Thomas

The sand is like icing sugar, blindingly white in the glare of the sunlight. It is powder soft underfoot but is also rich in silica and was prized in the glass-manufacturing industry.

For many years, the sand dunes that line the ocean side of Parengarenga Harbour were mined and the sand shipped to Whangarei, where it was loaded on to barges and towed to Auckland. These sand barges, moored inside Rangitoto Island, were a familiar landmark for fishermen; storage vessels for the glass industry. Those days are now over and the sand dunes along East Beach remain unspoiled.

The beach can be reached only through private forestry, so it does not carry the traffic of 90 Mile Beach on the other coast. It is a spiritual place where whales still wash up and godwits gather before embarking on their 11,000km journey to Alaska.

The small flocks of these little birds on the beach last weekend were the last to leave on their annual migration to northern Australia, Japan and Siberia before arriving in Alaska, where they breed.

Their return trip to New Zealand in September is the longest non-stop flight of any bird for, unlike seabirds, they can not rest on the water or feed at sea. The long-billed birds have grown fat feeding on marine organisms along the edge of the tide at Parengarenga over summer and, in earlier times, were a valued source of food for local people.

The tide was running when we arrived to cast baits into the channel where the harbour empties. It is a rich fishery and mullet were splashing on the surface, easily visible in the gin-clear water. Fish such as mullet, piper and flounder are common in this shallow harbour; the food basket for the community. So too are stingrays and sharks, kingfish, kahawai and parore.

The long surfcasting rods bent within a few minutes of the cut mullet baits splashing into the current 60m out from the sand. Kahawai jumped in the shallows as they were drawn in, their hooks removed carefully, and the gleaming silver and green fish were slipped back into the waves.

Any fish bleeding from the gills where a hook had been ingested was dispatched, bled and packed on ice.

The kahawai is an underrated sporting fish in this country; across the Tasman anglers target the fish they call salmon in recognition of its similarity to members of the trout and salmon family.

We are spoiled by the variety and abundance of our fisheries, and usually consign the fat kahawai to the smoke-house or the bait bin. But it is a fine table fish, as highly prized as sashimi or raw fish marinated in the Polynesian style. Others will bake it whole, stuffed like a chicken, or mix flakes with mashed potato and herbs to create crumb-coated fish cakes.

A local method is to scale the fish, removing the head and tail, then slice the trunk into thick steaks which are coated in flour and pan fried.

The kahawai continued to attack the baits before any passing snapper had a chance to investigate. Perhaps the snapper would bite better at night. The thought of a driftwood fire sparkling with blue flames, perhaps with a grill over the coals for browning sausages or roasting oysters from the marker posts in the harbour channels, was hovering in my mind as the rod bent yet again and another 2kg kahawai burst out of the water.

Little Tatyana Baker struggled with the long, heavy rod but, after much frantic winding of the handle, her fish was flapping on the sand. Her cousin, Waimana, pulled in another one and carried it carefully back to the water, smiling as it wriggled in the shallows before darting away.

Tatyana held up her kahawai as she posed for the camera, and then carried it back to the sea. The future of our fisheries is in good hands when youngsters like these accord such respect to their catch.