Hidden hooks a new sand trap

ROGER MORONEY
Fred and Cara Larrington, along with their dog Hamish, have long enjoyed their early-morning walks along the Awatoto beachfront in Napier.
And while they've never got used to it, they have sadly become accustomed to finding rubbish, including bottles and broken glass, which they pick up and later dispose of.
But earlier this week the Te Awa Avenue couple were left shaking their heads at the razor-sharp trap which almost snared them, and which could have left their 14-year-old crossbred corgi Hamish with a serious injury.
"It's lucky we found it first," Mrs Larrington said. What she and her husband had found was a tangled mass of nylon fishing line with 14 large fish hooks attached.
One of the hooks still had a chunk of bait on it, which would have almost certainly grabbed Hamish's attention. The line and hooks were hard to make out as they were tangled around and beneath two discarded bottles, which Mrs Larrington had gone to pick up.
The couple also came across about half a dozen other hooks on the beach.
Mrs Larrington said she was prompted to report the dangerous find in the wake of reading a "letter to the editor" from Bay View resident Andrew Robertson on Monday.
Mr Robertson bemoaned the number of bottles, some broken, which were left behind by people who had been drinking on the beach.
Mrs Larrington sympathised, and could not understand why some people seemed incapable of being able to take their dangerous rubbish with them.
As for the fish hooks?
"Well that's just absolute carelessness. Someone could have been badly hurt."
Like the bottles and rubbish the couple pick up during their daily early walks, the hooks were carefully wrapped up and taken away for disposal.