Fishing: Mission to save farmed kingfish

Twenty-eight tonnes of kingfish at a debt-troubled Far North farming venture will be cray bait by this time next week unless recreational fishers pull off a rescue mission.

Keith Ingram, of the NZ Recreational Fishing Council, wants to save the healthy fish from the population and transport them to release spots down the east coast.

Ingram is seeking permission from MFish, support from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) which breeds kingfish for farming, and donations.

The fish are owned by a subsidiary of the Parengarenga Incorporation, which has been buying Niwa fingerlings and raising them to around 3kg for export and selling around one tonne a week.

But costs have outweighed returns and maintenance has been more expensive than expected, and the operation owes millions. The farm is to close and the fish must be gone by Friday, unless Ingram has bought them by then, in which case more time will be needed to tag the healthy specimens.The kingfish range in size from 0.5kg to 3kg.

Ingram wants to borrow a Niwa transporting tank and release the fish at sites from Taipa and Whangaroa to the Bay of Islands and Hauraki Gulf, where the truck-mounted tank would be put on a barge and taken to islands such as the Noises. Niwa has advised that the fish should survive and will likely remain in a school near the release locations for some time.

"I found out on Wednesday that the fish had been offered to commercial fishermen for cray bait and that horrified me, so we're trying to pull off a salvage job," Ingram said.

Donations can be sent to the NZRFC at 4 Prince Regent Drive, Half Moon Bay, Auckland, or to PO Box 26-064, Newlands, Wellington.

If the plan works, Ingram wants to look at a longer-term project to raise and release fish every year.

The fishing has been extremely hard in many places, thanks to the wintry winds. Aucklander Aaton Buxton is among the few to have scored, taking snapper up to 10.5kg during a kite-fishing trip to Mokau.

The Mokau district is particularly good for kite-fishers, not just because of the scattered volcanic reefs and predominantly large surf that make things difficult for boaties and surfcasters alike. Every morning, the wind is offshore.

Kite fishers have been taking fat snapper up to 4kg off Pakiri and nearby beaches during the day, unusual at this time of year because those fish are usually only taken at night. The west coast looks good this weekend, with easterlies predicted.

Fishing up north is patchy, with snapper in 30m-40m behind Fairway Reef. Kahawai to 2kg are being caught inside the Mangonui Harbour but the run of John Dory has slowed.

The big run of fresh water has slowed fishing on the Manukau Harbour, as evidenced by the poor numbers weighed for the annual Gurnard Guru contest.

Anglers who found good spots before the contest found them dead last Sunday. Best fish was 1.348kg to Craig Lowry of the Howick club and the average weight was 0.640kg, a gurnard which won an inflatable and outboard for Alan Howes.

Far fewer were weighed than in previous years, said organiser John Moran. The fish appeared to have left the flats and shallow channels and headed to deeper water in the upper Waiuku Channel.

Some big kahawai were caught, very few trevally, and only one boy had luck with snapper, nailing two fish around 3kg.