Vessel fishing close to coastline 'not a trawler'

BOUND BY QUOTA: This boat featured in a story in Thursday's Chronicle is a set-net boat catching only rig and school shark, says its part-owner. PHOTO/SUPPLIED 07012014WCSUPTRAWLER1

The owner of Egmont Seafoods in New Plymouth is aiming to reassure recreational fishers that boats seen close to the Wanganui coastline recently were not fishing trawlers.

Keith Mawson is part-owner of the Savannah, which was pictured in Thursday's Chronicle fishing just one kilometre off Mowhanau Beach.

Its presence upset local recreational fishers who believed it was a trawler.

However, Mr Mawson told the Chronicle that his boat was a set-net boat and was targeting rig (lemon fish) and school shark.

And Mr Mawson said any commercial fishing happening off the coastline would have limited impact on recreational fishing. Just like recreational fishers, the commercial operators had lean trips when the fishing was poor because of tides and currents, the phase of the moon or because the sea had been too calm.

"They have got a right to be fishing where they are and they pay for the quota to fish in the area," he said.

The boats historically fished the South Taranaki Bight in the Mowhanau area during the summer months after Christmas but activity had increased because of the set-net restrictions put in place in recent years along the coast north of Hawera to Maunganui Bluff (off Dargaville) to protect Maui dolphins.

The nets are only set to catch the two particular shark species and are not targeted to catch snapper, tarakihi, john dory, gurnard and blue cod.

Mr Mawson said the boats do catch a small amount of bycatch, about 10 per cent of their total catch.

"The reason they can target these species with little bycatch is from experience and the nets they use have a reasonably large mesh size which allows smaller fish to swim through them."

The boats started to fish in the area only in the last few weeks and would be fishing for the next two months.

The boats were generally catching two to three tonnes of fish per trip and it was not having an impact on the fishing stock, he said.

"They're setting a net and pulling it up the next day, catching some species," he said.

Mr Mawson is on the executive committee of the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fisherman and is a director of Southern Inshore, a commercial fisheries stakeholder organisation.

"We've got a quota to go fishing and we have a right to go fishing in those areas if we wish to," he said.