Whitebait set netting at the mouth of Canterbury's Waimakariri River.

Adult whitebait swimming in a shoal up the lower Waimakariri River. Adults lay eggs on river and creekside vegetation at the high water mark. The eggs hatch on the next spring tide and the larvae are washed out to sea. The juvenile whitebait considered a delicacy in New Zealand, spend the winter at sea and return to the rivers during the spring. 

Sometimes the best whitebaiting takes place when the river is discoloured. It is frustrating having to waste time picking the whitebait out one at a time. Here is how to make a whitebait cleaning screen.

"You don’t need to be rich to get the riches out of life." Take a visit to the south island white-baiting haven Kwitchatown, an isolated world where men shelter from modernity and seek peace in the landscape, mateship and the ritual capture of tiny fish. Produced for Wireless Docs by Timothy Flower & Hamish Pattison