REGULATIONS FOR WHITEBAIT FISHING BY NET

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 43, 26 September 1949, Page 5

REGULATIONS FOR WHITEBAIT FISHING BY NET

How many people who go fishing for Whitebait in the Bay of Plenty each year know when the season commences or when it ends? How many know the prohibited fishing places, the sizes of the nets or the positions on the river. It may interest those ardent fishermen who frequent the banks of the local rivers that they have no more reserved right there than they have to reserve a fishing ground at sea. ' The regulations state that the “first fisherman to take up a position on any day shall have the right to keep that position for the remainder of the day long as he stays there. If he leaves the river bank temporarily he shall not be considered to have vacated the position, provided he marks it by fixing in the ground a peg or other mark supplied or prescribed for the purpose by the Inspector of Fisheries, and provided that his net is left out of the water on the position, and provided also that he does not absent himself for more than one hour.”

Those are position restrictions. No one has any more right' to them. Because a person may have been using one 1 position on a river bank he is not entitled to push anyone else off. Nor can he erect a notice reserving any particular spot. The regulations state quite plainly that when a spot has become vacant the first fisherman to arrive shall have the right to occupy it. N.I. Season Longer

The season in the North Island opens on July 1 and closes on November 30. In the South Island it is much shorter.

Another interesting point that will probably jolt some is the regulation which states that “no person shall fish for or take whitebait in any place during the period between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise.”

This fact is not generally known and all night fishing trips are quite common in a number of places. The size of the net is restricted and in most rivers is not to exceed nine square feet. However, there are some exceptions and in the Tarawera and Rangitaiki Rivers nets must not exceed 11 feet in circumference, while in the Kaituna River the limit is 15 feet circumference.

The restrictions have been framed to suit individual localities. On the banks between each net there must be a distance of at least two chains but in the Rangitaiki and Tarawera Rivers this is decreased to ten yards. For other parts of the country there are different laws but each is designed to provide fair sport but at the same time conserve the fish. They are not unfair and if obeyed New Zealanders should always be able to indulge in whitebait fishing. If they are not obeyed there is the fine of £2O but worse still there is the possibility of the fish being fished out. That is not an impossibility.