There are three main species in New Zealand. Paua can only be caught by free diving. It is illegal to dive for paua using scuba equipment.

You are allowed to take 10 of the common Paua (Haliotis iris) when they are larger then 125mm and 10 of Yellow foot if they are over 80mm in length. I have never seen any information regarding the third species they are not very common but in theory they would be part of the 50 mixed species bag limit.

Saying that I generally only take 3 or 4 paua every few trips. Like all seafood some people love them others don,t.

Depending on the part of the country they can be very common and easy to harvest or quite rare and a challenge. Generally the further south you go the more common and larger they become.

This link has more info regarding them
Paua

I was looking at the wikipedia page on Paua, they called the Yellow-foot 'Silver paua'. I never heard of tht name before, is it commonly used?

Maybe I should edit the wiped page because the name 'yellow-foot' is what mfish uses and is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

They taste all good. I find about 2 - 3 each person is enough for a meal. They are nice whole. A bit more tender and flavour is a bit more subtle than black foot.

ht hot hot frying pan, add NZ butter and some garlic and a little olive oil, cook whole paua one minute each side. Serve like a steak. Yum