Chasing a short-lived delicacy

The whitebaiting season has started and avid whitebaiter Adam Jamieson is back at the same spot he has been casting his net for the past 40 years.

Levin's Adam Jamieson has been whitebaiting on the Manawatu River for 40 years at the same spot his father fished, and where his daughter Charissa hopes to teach her children to whitebait.

They'll be there regularly during this year's whitebaiting season that started on August 15 and runs till November 30.

The Jamiesons and Max the dog were enjoying the morning sun last weekend on the river bank, a few hundred metres downstream from the SH1 river bridge, with their net below them floating just under the water on the incoming tide.

"I'll be bringing my kids down here too," said Miss Jamieson. "I love it. It's so relaxing."

"And we get a good feed at the end of it," Mr Jamieson said.

"It's a bit quiet so far today though," he said, of the morning's catch.

He said catches had declined noticeably since he had been coming to the family fishing spot, unlike the stories he had heard of people 60 years ago catching whitebait by the kerosene tin and using them as fertiliser around their lemon trees.

Whitebait are the young of a variety of native fish, including inanga, kokupu and koaro, that spend six months at sea and then head up rivers and streams to mature and breed.