The name Sam Woolford might be well-known amongst the Kiwi fishing fraternity, although you won’t see his name in any record books. He hasn’t captained famous sportfishing vessels, pioneered revolutionary fishing techniques, hosted a televised fishing show, won illustrious fishing competitions, or invented groundbreaking nautical technology. Yet, his work for the non-profit organisation LegaSea is arguably far more important than that of your stereotypical ‘sealebrity’.

“If it’s too windy to hit the workups, will it be frowned upon to go straylining with commercially caught bait and berley?” I pondered a week out from our scheduled trip with Woolford.

He’s the kind of bloke who can make you second-guess yourself. And it’s not simply down to the fact he holds strong views; it’s more a case of his ability to articulate, reason, and convince. I suppose you could boil down LegaSea’s work to asking the public to second-guess both the prevailing (failing) fisheries management system and their own fishing behaviours. 

Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Our allocated day dealt us a reasonably benign 10-15 knots of breeze from the southeast – not too shabby for chasing some workups with lures!

Diving gannets led the way to some fine slow-jigging action. 

So, there we found ourselves – a non-profit warrior, an editor, and a corporate highflier cruising into the Hauraki Gulf. It may sound like the start of a bad joke, but we had fishing to conduct and a serious interview to record. The ‘suit’ aboard was real estate guru Lloyd Budd, CEO of Bayleys Auckland. As the sponsor of our new Faces of Fishing section and Platinum Partner of LegaSea, Bayleys has a vested interest in sustainable fishing practices across our country’s coastline.

There was plenty to talk about as we set a course for Kawau Island. The Government had just announced last-minute changes to the Hauraki Gulf Marine Protection Bill – aside from the fact they would be tripling the areas where recreational fishing is excluded within the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, certain commercial fishing operations would now be permitted in those same areas. That’s the nature of the beast LegaSea deals with. They must be agile and respond quickly to knee-jerk decision-making and compressed consultation timeframes.

One of those new ‘Hardly Protected Areas’ could be seen off our port side along the way – a chunk of southern Kawau Island, neighbouring Moturekareka and Motuketekete Islands, and the seaward coast of East Mahurangi. This area offers a variety of sheltered, scenic, and productive recreational fishing options, and it’s sad to think it will be locked away from the public indefinitely. 

Woolford shakes his head.

“My greatest frustration is this idea that protecting a small area can increase populations of fish because we know fish are transient – they move through these spaces.”

He hasn’t always been frustrated, however.

“I grew up on the Manukau Harbour. We used to have a 12-foot tinny and it had no rivets left in it. It leaked like a sieve so you couldn’t fish without bailing. It was a team effort – one person bailed and the other one fished. Shit, it was great fun.”

Real estate guru Lloyd Budd, CEO of Bayleys Auckland (one of LegaSea’s Platinum Partners), loves his fishing.

I ask Woolford about his life before LegaSea.

“I zig-zagged. I used to be a dive instructor, did a bit of work commercial diving, did delivery trips up and down the coast, and took charter boats up to the islands.

“Then I spent seven or eight years in Europe – living in a landlocked country really grew my passion for the ocean. I realised I couldn’t not live close to it anymore.

“I had my mid-life crisis early. I used to be the marketing manager for a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. It wasn’t me. I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t motivated to be there. It didn’t matter how much the money was.”

In his eight-year tenure at LegaSea, Woolford has seen more than his fair share of frustrations but also chalked up some notable triumphs.  

“Wins are probably subjective as far as LegaSea goes. The major thing we have now is the level of understanding. We’ve got a wide group of sponsors. We’ve got a database of people who are super passionate. And it’s growing. People are caring more and more about the environment every day. People want to make sure their kids can go out and catch fish in the future. The ethos is really getting established in the community. It’s something I’m super proud of, and we’ve had to grind that out over the last eight years.”

Woolford’s love for fishing began in a leaky 12-foot tinny on the Manukau Harbour. This snapper was destined for the Kai Ika filleting station.

More tangible wins have included successful campaigns for reduced commercial catches of species like crayfish, working collaboratively with Ngāti Hei to restore Coromandel scallops, and driving behavioural change within the recreational fishing community through initiatives like the Kai Ika Project, where previously discarded fish heads and frames are collected and shared with the community.

“We’re relaunching the Free Fish Heads app because we’ve got more people in New Zealand who need that food and we’ve got fishers who want to do the right thing.

“Our FishCare programme promotes best practice techniques to help recreational fishers reduce their impact on our inshore fisheries.”

Then there’s the lesser-known stuff LegaSea has cut off at the pass.

“Two years ago, there was a proposed legislative change to remove public consultation from fisheries management decisions. You know, people don’t really know that even happened, but we were within a whisker of being completely cut out from the entire programme,” he says with a pained look.  

As we cruised further north, I privately wondered if Sam was hoping for poor fishing to somehow showcase or verify the fact the Gulf has been plundered for over a century. No such luck. A few miles beyond Flat Rock, gannets materialised all around us. 

Pulling up to thundering gannets and leaping dolphins, Budd and Woolford wasted no time getting their lines amongst the action. The wind soon stiffened to over 15 knots, but nobody cared – we all agreed a day on the briny is medicine for the soul. The Shimano Lucanus and Baku Baku lures, and the quirky new Daiwa Kohga Blade Breakers, seemed to be the flavours of the day. While we didn’t land any monsters, within a couple of hours we had a nice bag of snapper and kahawai on ice, destined for the Kai Ika filleting station to ensure ‘maximum utilisation’.

Hobbs Beach on Tiritiri Matangi Island masquerading as a tropical oasis.

I wanted to hear Woolford’s thoughts on a similar-sounding but far more menacing term – ‘maximum sustainable yield’. Maximum sustainable yield is a theoretical concept used extensively in fisheries science and management. It is defined as the supposed maximum catch that can be removed from a population over an indefinite period and is used to promote the management of fish at a small percentage of their potential biomass. It is based on some tenuous assumptions around the ability of fish to reproduce and grow at depleted population states due to reduced competition for resources.

“It’s kind of like pure economic theory – it’s great until you actually apply it,” he laughs.

“We don’t have accurate estimates of what fish populations actually are, and we have indiscriminate fishing techniques that are going to catch multiple different species in the net. 

“While we couple a single-species Quota Management System with indiscriminate fishing techniques, the idea of maximum sustainable yield is just rubbish – it’s never going to stack up.”

With the fishing (and technical chat) complete, our next port of call was Tiritiri Matangi Island, and along with it the prospect of a couple of cold beers to lubricate some tougher questions. 

I query Woolford about whether LegaSea has ever strayed too far into ‘greenie’ territory, given we’re recreational anglers who want to continue catching fish. 

“The relationships with the various stakeholders are always precarious, but there is a need to work together. We’ve gotta work out where those commonalities are – and focus on that – so we can push forward.

“We have to be prepared to adopt change. There’s nothing more clear than that.”

During his eight-year tenure at LegaSea, Woolford has seen more than his fair share of frustrations but also chalked up some notable triumphs.

Has he ever thought about giving up? Is it even possible or feasible for those systemic changes required to restore abundance in our marine environment to be made?

“The simple answer is, it has to be. What we’re dealing with right now isn’t OK. It’s only a matter of time before we see wholesale collapse. And that’s going to drive change… it has to drive change. Hopefully, we don’t get to that point but it’s coming sooner rather than later.”

He adds that it’s not going to happen “until we get a government that says we want to increase the amount of fish in the water, and the public is convinced that those fish aren’t going to be bulk-harvested and exported”.

“I'm hopeful as a community – as a country – we can get ahead of this. If we change the fisheries management system now, it means our kids will be able to catch fish. And yeah, it might mean we’ll have to take some cuts. There might be short-term pain to get long-term gain. But if we can get some confirmation from the Government that it’s about increasing fish populations, I’m pretty confident people will buy into that.”

Corporate highflier + non-profit warrior + magazine editor - they have more in common than you might think!

His parting note reiterates the importance of the everyday angler – in fact, everyone – in all this. 

“For us, it’s all about the public. Get them active, engaged, and passionate about this stuff and they will be the ones that actually champion change.

“You gotta subscribe. You gotta know what’s going on out there, guys. We’re constantly keeping people up to date with what’s going on in their regions.

“The other reality is that we’re a not-for-profit. So, if you do give a shit, if you do care about this amazing space,” he says looking around at the Tiritiri Matangi shoreline, masquerading as a tropical oasis on an Auckland spring day, “help us and consider putting a bit of money on the table. It doesn’t have to be much, but every cent counts right now.”

December 2024 - Words and images by Nick Jones

New Zealand Fishing News Magazine.

Copyright: NZ Fishing Media Ltd.

Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited