The Good Old Days

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    Posted: 31 Mar 2020 at 7:37am
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With no fishing to be had, I thought I'd share a few memories.

It's nearly 60 years since my Grandparents bought what was no more than an old bach right on the beach at Mairangi Bay and my love affair with the Waitemata/Hauraki Gulf began. While many people are very pleased with how the fishing is nowadays, it's literally not a patch on what it was in the early 60s.

The first time we stayed with the Grandies was Easter 1962. Dad had Thursday afternoon, Friday and Saturday off, and had to work Sunday pm and Monday. A very rare thing in those days where everything, literally everything, was closed from 5.00pm Easter Thursday until 09.00 the following Tuesday. 

We arrived mid afternoon Thursday and Grandad immediately said, "Let's go fishing!" No daylight saving in those days so we didn't have a lot of daylight. We went a short distance off the beach and dropped the pick in some random place. In no time at all, Grandad, Dad and I caught 12 snapper and 9 gurnard. 

Good Friday we had to go to mass in the morning so headed out at about 11.00, returning to base about 3.00. We went a long way out, perhaps 2/3 to Tiritiri Matangi. We caught 33 snapper (No thought or need to limit the take in those days), all between 3 and 6 pounds. God knows how Dad and Grandad (He only had one leg) managed to fillet and dispose of all that lot. I was knackered and had to have a nap.

The next day (Saturday) we went out early- 09.30. Smile

Everywhere we looked as we launched the boat were workups. There were literally dozens of them, and they were huge. We didn't know in those days that snapper were under the workups. We had to work hard to find a spot away from the kahawai and kingfish.

This day we caught another 42 snapper, again all between 3 - 6 lbs. (I so cringe when I think of all that carnage.)

To be fair, we had 3 very good days. But as good as they were, they were not exceptional for the time.

More posts to come.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote pjc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2020 at 8:02am
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The difference is,back then most were lucky to fish once a month and even then needed to know some one with a boat.Yes Dad/Grandfather talked about weekends away at (big adventure)1950s at Rakino coming home with 60+ snapper,but even back then(before freefish heads)all the neighbours were fed.

Funny how mention a Bach at Mairangi Bay.pre 60s was apparently where the family spent xmas holidays,big adventure from Devonport and Birkdale.
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Yes, Mairangi Bay was quite a journey then. The road my Grandparents lived on wasn't sealed, they were on tank water, can toilet that was collected and replaced every week by the council, no footpath, open drain on the side of the road and a party line telephone with 14 of their neighbours. And they paid 400 pounds, i.e. $800 per year rates for the privilege.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote thebakerman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2020 at 5:52am
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In my first post in this thread, I talked about boat fishing. This time I want to talk about clams.

During my first holiday at Mairangi Bay, we went for a walk along the beach at low tide. (It was Easter and the water was too cold for swimming for us softies.) We discovered that just below the low water mark the sand was full of Tuatuas. Using two hands you could pull up 10 at a time up to 50mm long. Nobody seemed to be bothered harvesting them, except us. In no time at all we had filled a bucket and had tuatua fritters to go with our fresh snapper. We soon learned that all other beaches, including for instance Orewa, had similar shell fish populations. Sadly, about a year or so later, the can toilets that people had were replaced with a sewerage system. The concrete walkways along the East Coast beaches were created to house and protect the sewerage pipes and raw sewerage was released into the sea every night at full tide. (Can you believe that!!??) Bye bye shellfish. I know that nowadays raw sewerage is not dumped into the sea on a nightly basis, but it's too late now.

At that time Orewa was still on can  sewerage and managed to escape the sewerage onslaught. However the shellfish beds on the main beach gradually dwindled, perhaps over harvesting, perhaps land run off, who knows? Not so the shellfish beds at the mouth of the Orewa river. When I was a student in the early 70s, we would often go shellfish gathering under the SH1 bridge as you enter Orewa from the South. These beds were shoulder to shoulder with what we called pipis- a flattish yellow clam. 

Some time around then, Orewa got a full sewerage system. Almost overnight, bye bye pipis. The council vigorously claimed that the water they discharge is drinkable, however to the best of my knowledge they never checked with the pipis.

I so miss being able to get a feed of clams.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote pjc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2020 at 6:37am
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posted this a few yrs ago now,I imagine no change though.The 70s at Ponui Island (ChamberlinBay)we use to get cockles the size of 50mm,went back about 5yrs ago,gone was the soft brown mud to be replaced by a thick black sludge.Can only think the sediment had come from the development of Pine Harbour or the earth works around Beachlands,no cockles to found.

Mairangi Bay sewage complex has a pipe that goes about a kilometer out to sea,and at times you will come across a brown water in the area,not sure if it is just excess storm water or sewage.

We have not been kind to our coastal waterways.
Chathelm beach Devonport use to have beds and at low tide you would find holes from snapper/strinrays digging.But its all gone.

Living in Devonport it was not unusual to fish from the wharf ,Ky mainly and yellowtail,sprats pakiti.Gone.As a child you had to be weary of the whitebait netters,but that changed when fisheries come out with some ruling,the baiters said they were catching inanga,Oh in that case your mesh is to small.That was pretty much the end of baiting on the wharf.

Have been back down the shore only to find the kelp beds gone,pollution??

Afraid to say you and I probably had the best time late 60s early 70s on the shore,stuff our children will never enjoy again.

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Yes, PJC, they were good times.

When I was a kid, both my Grandfather and Great Grandfather were of course bemoaning how much the fisheries had deteriorated even then.

The sad thing is that people younger than ourselves have no concept, of what once existed and therefore and therefore no belief in what could be again. That's one of my drivers in writing this. If we can regain just 10% of lost ground, that would be a good to depart this world when the time comes.

Although I started this thread, I don't own it. Please feel free to make as many contributions as you like.
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Something else about the early 60s- the beaches were thick with sprats and to a lesser, but nevertheless still significant extent, piper. You could cast a little bait rod out on any beach any time of the day or night and you would catch sprats and/or piper. 

My Grandad had what he called a "bait net", and we would sometimes put that out the night before we would go fishing. When we did, heaps of neighbours would come down with buckets and fill them up with the fish that were surplus to our requirements. 

We would often walk around the rocks to Murray's Bay and spend the day fishing for piper using a float. My Grandma loved eating piper and she would often come with me, and tell me about the "good old days" when they would mow their hay with a scythe and make their own butter etc.

All the bays in the inner harbour above bridge were also thick with sprats and piper whereas nowadays, only very occasionally do you see a small school.

In the night time (not during the winter) snapper were relatively easy to catch off the reefs at the foot of the cliffs between the East Coast Bays beaches. They would hang in close to the reefs and you could pretty much always catch a feed.

Nowadays I often see fishermen fishing from the reefs when the tide is right, but they mostly seem to be targeting squid. We had no idea the water held squid, so we never thought to target them.
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Living in Devonport,just along from the naval base.It was not uncommon to go to horsie beach(some called it donkey)by the ferry terminal.This is where I learnt to jar fish,wade out bread in bottom of jar (jar tied to string)place jar on sand sprat would swim in ,sometimes could get 2 in one go.
A little bit of history,unbeknown to me.the man who showed was no other Verdun Scott.Who I hear you say. Dad said he was crickter and just googled him(this reminded me)and turns he was.
 Verdun John Scott (31 July 1916 – 2 August 1980) was a sportsman who represented New Zealand in both Test cricket and rugby league. As of 2017 he is the only player to have done so.[
 He played in one Test match before the start of World War II cut short the tour. He was one of five players who did not play in the two club matches the Kiwis played before the tour was cancelled.[1] On one occasion he played on Carlaw Park for North Shore and after the game was completed raced to Eden Park where he scored 22 runs in the last match of the cricket season.

Late 1960s when I met him,his family lived up the hill.Only thing I knew was he was a wharf y.
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Hi PJC- I so remember catching sprats in jars. In fact in the early 70s there were still plenty of sprats around and you could buy specially made "plastic" jars for this purpose.

In reference to Verdun Scott, it was an interesting time where high achieving people lived out their lives without having to go, "Look at me! I'm famous." 

As an example, I had an Uncle, Nap Kingston, who was an All Black and came very close to being an NZ cricketer. Although I never actually met him, it was clear that he was a very modest man and it wasn't until after his death that I learned that he was a lot more than just "Uncle Nap".
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I met an ole timer at the Onerahi boat ramp once in Whangarei Hbr, he grew up on a farm on the hills and land in Portland. He told me of a day they were bringing cows home and witnessed a school of about 2-3000 flounder coming up the harbour and the boys racing home to get the nets out. That fed the community for weeks!

He also said for fishing they would row not very far off the mangroves about a 7ft oars depth and then anchor and catch about 120 snapper over the tide!Shocked
"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." - Jacques Cousteau
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I too caught sprats (yems) in jars. We progressed to making mini hinaki to catch them. I also used to catch them using my mum's cotton and bent pins as hooks.I would use dough to catch the first one then use that to catch the rest. Interesting though the comments about how the vast schools of piper and sprats have disappeared. Why is that? did we kill them all as kidsErmm I don't think they were a commercial target Wacko
Best gurnard fisherman in my street
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote thebakerman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2020 at 12:16pm
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Hi Catchelot, Wow, I fished the Onerahi boatramp myself. We lived in Onerahi during my high school years. Even then though, the fishing was pretty tough.

I still make the occasional trip in the Whangarei harbour to fish the mangroves over near skull creek etc. There are still good snapper to be caught, but only at night and only one or two per trip.
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I would only be guessing smudge as to what has happened to the sprat and piper schools. What ever the cause, it's bound to be human created. Perhaps increased run off, perhaps destruction of breeding grounds, perhaps sewage discharge. Who knows- but the sea was a better place when it teemed with fish.
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Something else that happened in the early to mid 60s was the uncontrolled pillaging of the fishery by Japanese fishing boats. It seemed everybody in those days had several glass and/or plastic floats covered in rope netting that had come free from their long lines and washed up on a beach. All night you could see the lights from the trawlers inside of Tiritiri Matangi. Who knows what they were fishing for. Maybe squid, maybe snapper maybe everything that lived in the ocean. It was criminal. In those days we only had a 6 mile limit, and the Japs ignored it with impunity and our government ignored them with impunity. By the early 70s they stopped coming in. There was no point. They'd caught everything. For years afterwards it was almost impossible to catch a legal snapper. They're such a slow growing species that it takes forever for them to recover from a slaughter of that magnitude. On the good side, I have to say that the snapper stocks are in pretty good nick nowadays. With the coming of plastic and other artificial baits catching a good feed is a relatively easy task again. 
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We used to travel from Hamilton all the way up to Auckland than out west through titirangi and out to Huia, my uncle and auntie owned the motorcamp and shop and we used to stay in one of their old batches. This was late 60,s as a kid I fished all over, little huia wharf, but mainly walked around the rocks to destruction gully. Fishing with hand lines, or when the tide was right and the mullet we’re running we would set the net. My dad ant the other grown ups would spend the next day smoking fish and drinking home brew.

Used to be good mussels on the rocks around at little huia, pipis and cockles out at the low tide mark and plenty of flounder to spear at night.
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Hi Kandrew,

I went out to Huia about 10 years ago and there were some people surfcasting. I had a chat with them and they told me that on a good day with the right tide they get 2 or 3 gurnard with the odd random snapper or ky thrown in. A few years previously they even hooked a kingfish they told me.
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Haven’t been out there for 20 plus years, looks like the realestates got a bit pricey out there like everywhere. Might take the family out there for a drive after lockdown
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Originally posted by thebakerman thebakerman wrote:

Hi Kandrew,

I went out to Huia about 10 years ago and there were some people surfcasting. I had a chat with them and they told me that on a good day with the right tide they get 2 or 3 gurnard with the odd random snapper or ky thrown in. A few years previously they even hooked a kingfish they told me.
Seen plenty of Kings been taken in last 5yrs.
Whatipu was a place the Grandfather went to when the yanks were based there in the 40s,apparently use to come home with a couple of sacks of whatipu fleas(crays)Know idea how he got there or back.Dad never mentioned it.
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Originally posted by Kandrew Kandrew wrote:

Haven’t been out there for 20 plus years, looks like the realestates got a bit pricey out there like everywhere. Might take the family out there for a drive after lockdown

Still cheaper than most of Auckland and we are limited to what can be built because of our septic tanks , keeps most of it to two and sometimes three bedrooms .
Have friends who own the motor camp now -I’d be interested to know the family name when your relatives owned it .
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If you go out there kerry dont forget a good coffee at the huia store.
Great old building ,full of character. Museum further along the road is also worth a visit.
Maybe a pleasant walk up to the dam as well.
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