[dave]

i was on the coast last week , took the week off work,Dad and i jumped in the house bus and headed to a river to catch some bait, our first night we fished the evening tide and pulled in the socknet, and to our shock we had a nice wee pudding of bait. twenty pounds.

People ask how the fishing is going and its amazing how you lie and say not much bait , maybe a pound if we were lucky. if they had only seen what was in our wee freezer..

http://images.trademe.co.nz/photoserver … 5_full.jpg

tried to place photo on this site but could not make it small enough..

[elmo22]

i was on the west coast 17–26 went to karamea and spent alot of time on the river,i dont have to lie about my catch lol i got 26lbs for the time i was there, biggest catch for one day was 6 1/2 lbs. other wise just a few lbs each day.. but i had a bloody great time up there and going back for the last 2days of there season.

[Miliwolf]

There was a few big catches where I was fishing the other day, At one of my surfcasting spots school after school of whitebait were following the tide pass me.. Wished I had a net with me.

Think I might indulge my laziness and purchase a setnet. This one looks good imo
http://www.discountfishingsupplies.co.nz/shop/akura-trap-whitebait-sock-lowered-trap-p-2884.html Any thoughts?

[Fishy Bishy]

Colin does some real good deals at DFS but that looks a little high for this time of the season. Ring him and ask for an end of season deal. You just never know with retailers in a recession….
On topic, the catches spoken of above and even shown in photos…..WOW! I have had some good days but NEVER that good.

[Miliwolf]

I was told that someone filled a 10L bucket with whitebait over a single tide at one of the river i visited over the weekend. That was not bad.

The above is the most expensive and top end net they had on their website. Decided if I was going to spend hours sitting around doing nothing to buy the best gear that way I can not blame the equipment when I catch nothing. The price difference between them is not much. The net is only the price of a decent Reel and it should last 20 years and probably has a better chance of paying for itself then the rest of my fishing gear. I think it is worth the extra to get a net with English Ulston mesh, recently replaced my current scoop net mesh with generic (or Kiwi Mesh, Nascan Mesh or something) and the increase in drag is significant.

Would check a couple of stores in Blenheim to see what they have in stock, although I beleive the local H&F have put their white-baiting stock back into storage.

[Anonymous]

certainly a must have is the english ulston !

also nice link.. discount fishing supplies

I have played in there for a couple of hours already…quality gear.

cheers

[dave]

what do you think of doc wanting new rules for whitebaiting, licence each baiter and no traps in there nets…
i think the licence is a good thing maybe fish and game should take it over, not sure about the trap thing as that would be a pain with not having one in a sock net.

[Miliwolf]

I kind of agree with the no trap option, would get rid of the passive fishing while people just sleep in their cats or camper vans while the nets are set. Maybe even get rid of sock nets entirely.

The license… In principal yes. But I can see it becoming just another revenue source and the license fee raising every year…. Maybe a $10 license for ‘Recreational’ and a $100 license for ‘Commercial’ could be introduced. The income should go towards enforcement and habitat improvements.

I also kind of agree with the requirement that whitebait should only be sold to licensed fish sellers. Would certainly help weed out any tax dodging taking place.

I can see both negatives and positives with the proposed changes.

[dave]

how do you sleep in a cat….must be a big cat.

[Miliwolf]

You get them to lay on top of you

[Author]

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