Hooked on fishing: They're tiny, wriggly and so scrumptious

By GEOFF THOMAS

The whitebait season is three weeks old, and every day around the country whitebaiters wait patiently at their favourite spots on the banks of rivers and streams for the tiny fish to appear.

Small runs of whitebait go up streams which flow from stands of native bush around large cities like Auckland, but the best 'baiting is in remote areas, and the West Coast of the South Island is the centre.

People travel to the West Coast from all over New Zealand, hoping to strike big runs of the succulent fish which can bring big dollars. At the town of Haast, the population explodes from 300 to 3000 during the season. The standard greeting on the coast is, "How's the 'bait?"

Whitebaiting stands are licensed and jealously guarded, but no licence is needed to sell the catch. Strict regulations control the harvesting, with no fishing permitted upstream of the tidal influence on all streams on the coast. Some rivers are closed to fishing altogether. These sanctuaries ensure that some whitebait survive to breed and maintain the resource.

Whitebait are the juveniles of six species of native fish which the early Maori called kokopu, inanga and koaro. Scientists know them as the galaxias family, found in New Zealand, Australia and South America. Some people mistakenly refer to the smooth-skinned fish as mountain trout, mud trout or native trout.

They are secretive fish, and every autumn the adults migrate downstream to where their birth river joins the sea in a brackish mixture. They deposit their eggs on reeds which are covered only by the highest tides. A month later another high tide will inundate the millions of eggs, which hatch into larval fish.

The combination of falling tide and strong river current sweeps the vulnerable babies out to sea, where predatory fish decimate their numbers.

The survivors learn to swim in groups, growing quickly in the plankton-rich water for several months until they surrender to a growing urge to leave the saline water and begin the long, hazardous journey back to the quiet pools deep in the bush.

The whitebait which run in the Waikato River system and rivers flowing into the Firth of Thames are young inanga, larger and coarser than the delicate, translucent West Coast whitebait, which are the young of the dwarf kokopu, the short-jawed kokopu, giant kokopu, banded kokopu and the koaro.

Whitebaiting is big business on remote rivers like the Cascade in south Westland, where generations of families have established communities where they live for three months, harvesting the delicacy in huge quantities to supply markets in the large cities.

Aircraft, jet boats and helicopters have replaced horses to carry the rich harvest out to the nearest roadhead and return with supplies.

At the Cascade River Whitebait Company, generators power a sophisticated complex which includes a packing factory and chiller. One cabin has a pool table and bar. Paid workers help to man the stands.

The wide-mouthed scoop nets which are so popular at North Island river mouths are rarely seen here. There are 31 licensed stands on the Cascade, sophisticated structures up to 23m long with scaffolding, walkways, pulleys for raising the huge box traps and screens to direct the fish to the mouth of the trap.

A whitebait stand must cover no more than a third of the river's width. The stands can be raised to protect them during floods, and when the season closes, all stands must be removed from the river.

Stands can be sold, and may bring $8000 on a river close to Haast, but on the Cascade River bigger money would be involved.

The whitebait run on the incoming tide, and on a good day the fishermen are busy for six hours emptying the box nets which trap the fish.

A genuine West Coast whitebait pattie has no flour to make it go further, just a couple of eggs mixed with a kilo of whitebait to bind it together. Thick patties are fried in hot butter and served steaming hot on a slice of bread.