KEY POINTS:
On the front lawn of Trish Rea's West Auckland home is the wreck of the Bounty, a clinker-built fishing dory. Badly holed and rotting, it's equal parts eyesore and garden focal point.
Rea once suggested to Mark, her fishing-nut partner, that he chop it up and dispose of it. "It was like saying 'burn your grandmother'.
"When he was a baby his father used to wrap him in a sack and take him out fishing in it - he'd teach him how to fish."
Fortunately, Trish is equally mad about fishing.
"I started fishing when I was a kid, then more so when I met Mark. He would sleep and breathe fishing - it was a combination made in heaven."
The Glen Eden couple would go out on the Manukau twice a week, or to the Bay of Islands in summer for some big game fishing.
Fishing, she says, is about putting food on the table - and not only for family and a few fish over the fence for the neighbours. It's a cultural thing, and part of that is passing on the techniques and folklore of fishing to your children - "If you catch a fish it's the catching and it's the story ... "
These days, Rea goes fishing only a handful of times a year - she's too busy fighting for the rights of amateur fishers in the Option4 lobby group. When she does get out, like every fisher's yarn you've ever heard, the fishing's not as good as it used to be. Big fish in particular are harder to come by.
Option4 blames the commercial industry's right to fish to the "maximum sustainable yield". While enough fish may be left to sustain the fishery, fewer decent-sized ones are around for the weekend angler.
Dangling a line in the water is a summer holiday ritual for many New Zealanders and a right most take for granted.
Fishing means different things to different folk. Some find the catching almost incidental - there's something transcendental about sitting for hours beneath clear blue skies contemplating a languid ocean, the chores of the day confined to changing bait or opening the chilly bin. Then there are the flashy, short-attention-span types guzzling gas and booze in gin palaces.
But for thousands more, like Rea, it's about fishing for a feed. Fresh, healthy, succulent finfish and shellfish beyond the routine reach of ordinary New Zealanders when bought over the counter.
Yet, if you believe the recreational lobbyists, this right is under siege from bureaucrats and those who profit from hoovering up the ocean's bounty.
"Recreational fishers are depicted like a plague of locusts who rape and pillage stocks - it's simply not true," says Paul Barnes, kite-fishing businessman and Option4 project leader.
Says Rea: "They are trying to make demons out of people fishing for food."
Who'd have thought a pastime with an image of peaceful contemplation could generate such vehemence, hostility, thinly-veiled threats - and so many red herrings? The politics of fishing are as deceptive as the sea itself.
An estimated 20 per cent of New Zealanders are amateur fishers, catching about 25,000 tonnes annually - a sprat compared to the allowable commercial catch of 589,000 tonnes, if the recreational estimate is accurate.
Since 1986, when the quota management system was introduced in a bid to keep commercial harvesting at sustainable levels, a turf war has ebbed and flowed over "shared fisheries" - species such as snapper, kahawai, kingfish, hapuku, crayfish and paua, which are also pursued by recreational and Maori customary fishers. The elusive quarry is a way of managing these fisheries sustainably and fairly.
The Ministry of Fisheries has made several attempts to extend recreational management beyond size and bag limits and net restrictions - with the enthusiastic backing of the commercial industry, which regards any reduction in its take as giving a free property right to the amateurs.
The last big push was the Soundings consultation in 2000, which foundered when some fishers rejected options which would limit them to a fixed share of the fishery and require licensing. They promoted an alternative which spawned Option4, a ginger group sometimes at odds with the long-established Recreational Fishing Council.
The latest shared fisheries proposals, unveiled in November last year, raised such a stink that Minister of Fisheries Jim Anderton ran for shelter and put off decisions for a year.
The main sticking point, once again, was a proposal to limit recreational fishers to a fixed proportion of the total allowable catch - an amount calculated to ensure particular fisheries remain sustainable. Commercial fishers already operate this way - the commercial catch under the quota management system is set to produce the maximum sustainable yield.
The shared fisheries discussion document proposed that recreational fishers be guaranteed a minimum tonnage which would have priority over the commercial take. The Maori customary take would also be provided for when setting allocations. Commercial fishers would be compensated for any reduction in the quantity of fish they could take.
To the uninitiated, the proposals may sound reasonable, but hardcore fishers have a very different take on the Government moves. Some claim that, for the proposals to work, everyone who drops a line in the water will need a licence.
"The whole shared fisheries thing is an insult to any person that's caught a fish," says Rea. "It's a common law right for people to access the public resource in the fisheries. Shared fisheries is about giving us an explicit allocation.
"They are talking about limiting a lifestyle.
"It's traditional fishers going to be affected the most. It's the wrong approach in an island country."
Recreational Fishing Council president Keith Ingram says a proportional allocation would leave recreational fishers vulnerable whenever reductions in the allocation were needed to rebuild fish stocks. "We are not going to be party to it."
Then there's the question of how the ministry would accurately measure and monitor the recreational take. How would amateur fishers be compelled to report their catch without a licensing system? Would paid fisheries officers have to be stationed full-time on every boat ramp?
To keep the plan afloat, Anderton took up an offer from the recreational council, the Seafood Industry Council and Te Ohu Kaimoana (the Treaty of Waitangi Commission's Maori fisheries trust) to try to find common ground. This fishing sector group will report back by April 30, and Anderton wants firm policy proposals from his ministry in July.
Why do anything? The ministry says growing demand from recreational and customary fishers for a greater share of the available resource means total demand sometimes exceeds sustainable catch levels. Forest and Bird says 17 of New Zealand's 68 fisheries are over-fished or have substantially declining stocks.
Fishers know the story. Barnes went out off Auckland's west coast last week and caught five snapper.
"Everyone was undersized. We shouldn't catch undersized snapper on the west coast; if that was a healthy fishery you'd have decent-sized fish swimming there.
"The size of all fish has dropped immensely."
In Snapper 1, the east coast northern North Island snapper fishery, Barnes says stocks have recovered since a former fisheries minister "decided what recreational fishers were saying had some substance and took 1500 tonnes off the industry".
But subsequent ministers have been less willing to reduce quotas or close fisheries.
The great unknown in all this is the size of the recreational catch in
particular fisheries. Crucially, there is little scientific basis for a recreational catch limit - and the estimates are believed to significantly under-estimate the recreational take.
The fear is that the ministry scientists' recreational catch estimates are so wrong that some fish species are at risk. When the scientists catch up, it will be far quicker and easier to reduce amateur bag limits than to fight commercial fishers through the courts to try to reduce quotas, and cheaper than paying compensation.
Yet recreational fishers say any sustainability problems in the vast majority of fisheries are caused by commercial over-exploitation.
Barnes blames misuse and abuse of the much-trumpeted quota management system for falling stocks. Initial quotas in some fisheries were obviously excessive, he says. They were based on historic takes and commercial fishers ramped-up catches in anticipation. Many quotas were then further inflated by 20 to 30 per cent through quota appeals.
Another culprit is the "deemed value" process, under which commercial fishers who catch more than their quota pay what Barnes calls the equivalent of a fine without losing the fish.
But the Government has been reluctant to reduce quotas, fearing court challenges and compensation demands.
The humble kahawai has become the torchbearer for the amateurs' rearguard fight. In 2004, not long after kahawai was brought into the quota management system, former Minster of Fisheries David Benson-Pope reduced commercial and recreational catch limits for kahawai by 15 per cent. The move had a remarkable and unforseen outcome - it united the staunchly divided recreational fishers, who took the minister to court.
The kahawai legal challenge, brought by the Recreational Fishing Council, Option4 and the Big Game Fishing Council, argued that in setting the catch limit under the Fisheries Act, the minister should have proper regard to the social, economic and cultural wellbeing of the people.
In March, the High Court found in favour of recreational fishers. The commercial fishers immediately appealed and the Appeal Court hearing is set for April - about when the fishing sector group proposals are due.
If the ruling is upheld, it has huge implications for other shared fisheries, suggesting that in setting the allowable catch, non-commercial interests will have priority and the commercial allocation will be based on what's left. The minister would have to review quota levels in all shared fisheries.
As critical as the kahawai case is, it won't settle the underlying issue of sustainable management of shared fisheries and a fair way of setting and adjusting the allowable catch.
But amid the entrenched divisions and hyperbole which fishers bring to any debate, can the sector group find common ground?
Options in the discussion document for setting allocations include an independent panel to hear submissions and assess historical evidence, negotiations between amateur and commercial fishers, or a valuation study considering commercial and non-commercial values for fishing.
Ingram says poor information about fish stocks creates the risk of accelerating the damage to them.
"We've said to the ministry it's better to err on the side of caution and over-estimate the size of the catch. But the industry tries to talk down the recreational take so they get a bigger share. Now they're frightened that if the ministry gets better information, it will take it back off them."
But the industry, publicly at least, is smoothing the waters.
"While there may be issues, [between sector group parties], these interests know more about fisheries than any bureaucrat will ever understand," says Seafood Industry Council chief executive Owen Symmans.
"We need to find some simple means whereby recreational fishermen can take some responsibility and report their catch. We need to develop a culture whereby people recognise the need to provide information."
Early this year, Te Ohu Kaimoana chief executive Peter Douglas said doubts remained about which group took more of the country's fish.
"It's not right to say commercial fishing operations are taking more than recreational fishers. Every sector needs to report its catches ... "
And the fishing companies are targeting bag limits. Sanford CEO Eric Barratt said during the kahawai hearing last year: "A daily 20 fish per person bag limit does not constitute credible management - this is an extreme amount to feed a family with."
Anderton, meanwhile, wants progress on less contentious issues. In November, he announced moves to record the catch of the growing number of recreational charter boats, which seek prime finfish like kingfish and snapper.
Extra funding is expected in the Budget for research to better estimate the recreational catch in important species.
Work is also progressing on a proposed amateur fishing trust to represent recreational fishers in negotiations. The trust would be Government-funded for the first five or 10 years but would be expected to become self-funding. Option4 believes that will require marine fishers to buy licences.
There are other proposals which Option4 regards as extending the quota management system to recreational fishers.
"They talk about 'willing seller, willing buyer' so recreational and commercial fishers can swap quota, so it's a tradeable commodity," says Option4's Paul Barnes.
"They want to privatise the whole fishery and the bait they are using is funding for the amateur fishing trust."
The ministry rejects claims that its proposals amount to extending the quota system to recreational fishing.
Proportionalism was only one option, and would work only once agreement on initial shares has been reached, it said in a written response to Weekend Herald questions.
"No decisions have yet been made about any changes to how allocations are made or to introduce proportional allocations as a requirement."
Recreational fishers say the answer is to confirm the common law right to fish and ensure sustainability by using more sophisticated controls on commercial fishing. Option4 says the Fisheries Act contains the management tools needed to rebuild and manage inshore fisheries.
"There's a huge difference in the way recreational and commercial fishers respond to depleted fisheries," says Barnes.
"Commercial fishers just get bigger boats and keep catching their quota. If it's about rebuilding fisheries recreational people are always the first to step in and help."
Ingram says the act needs to be changed so the minister can prevent the industry fishing to the maximum sustainable yield.
"What we are going to do is secure open access rights to our marine fisheries in perpetuity."
How?
"Therein lies the $64,000 question.
"Half the problem is the ministry not implementing existing provisions in the act because they are frightened of the industry taking them to court."
But, he says, the kahawai decision, should it stand, will give the historically divided recreational lobby much needed teeth, because of its potential to be extended to cover other species of fish. The industry has to either start being good citizens or they are going to get smacked around the ears."
SUSTAINABLE STOCKS
WORST 10
* Orange roughy
* Southern bluefin tuna
* Oreos
* Porbeagle shark
* Mako shark
* Pacific bluefin tuna
* Blue shark
* Hoki
* Snapper
* Swordfish
BEST 10
* Kina
* Anchovy
* Pilchards
* Sprats
* Blue mackerel
* Skipjack tuna
* Garfish
* Yellow-eyed mullet
* Cockles
* Kahawai
