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Once upon a time there were "acres of kahawai" in the Hauraki Gulf, says fisherman Wayne Banks, schools so thick you simply threw a lure over the side and hauled them in.
"It ain't like that no more; the stock was utterly, completely hammered and decimated," the 38-year-old Auckland charter boat operator says.
Banks has been fishing for more than 20 years in the gulf, first taken out by his father, then becoming a commercial longline fisherman and finally going into the charter business.
"I've been on both sides of the fence but for moral reasons I always longlined," he says.
Longliners use hooks, as opposed to purse seiners which drop a net off the back, drive in a circle then scoop the fish on board.
Banks blames purse seiners for the depletion in kahawai stocks.
"Nothing else explains it. If it was some other thing the variation would be seasonal, not year on year over the whole stock."
Banks say kahawai are rebuilding in the gulf but only because the commercial fishermen stopped getting a return for their efforts.
"Still, it's good to see the fish coming back."
He is aware of the legal challenge over kahawai, where recreational, or amateur, fishers are taking legal action over what they say is the Ministry of Fisheries' refusal to allocate them a fair share of inshore fisheries against what commercial fishers get under the Quota Management System (QMS).
Chatting outside court during the hearing last week, both sides in the case sling mud at each other as easily as they drop a fishing line or a trawl net.
Recreational fishers paint "the commercial guys" as rapists and pillagers, stealing away the right of future generations to catch a fish.
Commercial fishermen have their own cherished stereotype: amateurs who float about in "gin palaces" hooking enough snapper over the side to feed an entire Remuera street for a week.
Although kahawai, the "people's fish", is at the centre of this case, commercial fishermen fear a win for recreational fishers will threaten their share of other, more valuable stocks such as snapper and tarakihi.
That's why industry launched a counterclaim as soon as it was clear legal action was ahead.
Recreational fishers is the legal term used in the High Court at Auckland but defining amateur fishers is about as easy as catching a 9lb snapper from the end of Princes Wharf. Weekend fishers, hobby fishers, call them what you will, range from the couple with deckchair and vacuum flask surfcasting off a Coromandel beach to the boat-load of businessmen heading out into the Hauraki Gulf for a long and beery weekend.
Recreational fishing groups funding this action estimate the cost at more than $300,000 but say it's worth it.
"Many inshore fisheries were in danger of collapsing before the QMS was introduced," says fishing-kite businessman Paul Barnes.
He says New Zealand commercial fishers have fished stocks down to a point where recreational fishermen can't catch a fish.
"We've been allocated allowances in fisheries that in some cases had been fished down to 10 per cent of their original, virgin stock size," he says.
Lawyer Stuart Ryan, the legal brain behind the recreational fishermen's case, says: "Case law has been dominated by the commercial industry suing the Ministry of Fisheries and we want to straighten up the scrum," he says.
Kahawai are not the most-prized catch for either commercial or amateur fishermen but their introduction into the QMS in 2004 touched a raw nerve. The recreational fishermen finally became organised and banded together, something that up to now had proved about as easy as herding cats.
In court, representatives of the Recreational Fishing Council, the New Zealand Big Game Fishing Council and lobby group Option4 (a group that split from the Recreational Fishing Council during the controversial "Soundings" consultation which became so bogged down in argument over fishing licences it was abandoned) are not only sitting cosily side by side, they are flanked by supporters from Ngapuhi.
It's the first time iwi and recreational fishers have banded together after years of mutual distrust over customary take.
"We are recreational fishers 98 per cent of the time," says Ngapuhi kaumatua Hone Sadler.
"The only time we are customary fishers is when we have, say, a hui. This case is about being able to put fish on the table for our children."
What Ryan is arguing is that amateur fishers have had their rights consistently undermined by the demands of a litigious commercial sector hell-bent on protecting private property quota rights.
The kahawai QMS decision made by then-Fisheries Minister David Benson-Pope and the allocations that went with it is at the heart of the case.
Recreational fishermen say under the Fisheries Act, the minister must provide for the "social, cultural and economic value" of shared fisheries but the social and cultural values, there to protect the right of all New Zealanders to go fishing, are consistently overlooked. Barnes is scathing of the commercial industry. After the QMS was set up in 1986, commercial fishermen used the Quota Appeals Authority to argue for higher quotas and in many cases were given them, he says.
They then upped this through a process called "deeming", whereby they could catch fish over and above quotas as long as they paid a levy on the extra.
Barnes estimates quotas were increased overall by up to 30 per cent.
"So not only have they jacked their quotas up, they're taking on average 10 per cent over that amount," he says.
"If quotas had been based on the science available at the time, which was absolutely right, then we'd be able to walk on the backs of snapper from Auckland to Devonport."
Recreational fishers lobbied hard for the lion's share of the kahawai fishery, arguing commercial quota should be set at zero so the stock would be left above maximum sustainable yield (MSY). That would leave more, and bigger, fish in the sea for amateur anglers.
MSY is central to any discussion on fisheries but fisheries science is not only complex, it's hotly contested.
Simply, MSY is the amount of fish scientists estimate is available year-on-year without over-fishing.
Recreational fishers say under the act, there is no reason why every stock must be fished to MSY, but in reality that is what happens. It leaves amateurs throwing a line in a fishery that has been "fished down".
What really grates for recreational fishers is that kahawai is low value to industry and usually exported as crayfish bait or fish meal, but for them it's an important catch.
In the end, recreational fishers got the lion's share of the fishery, 3415 tonnes compared with industry's 3035 tonnes, but Benson-Pope, concerned at historic and wildly differing stock assessments, also cut the overall allocation by 15 per cent for everyone.
Commercial fishers said after they took their cut, no effort was made to cut recreational bag limits, something they are arguing in this case was an error in law.
As the lawyers were heading to court, Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton released a discussion paper to deal with these exact issues. The paper calls the conflict between commercial and recreational fishers the "most contentious issue in the (fisheries) system".
Ideas in the paper to try to reduce that antagonism include prioritising amateur fishing in some areas, asking one side not to fish their allocated allowance so stocks can rebuild, forcing charter boat operators to report catch, and finding a way to keep better count of what recreational fishers are taking.
Also on the table is the creation of an "Amateur Fishing Trust" to speak for recreational fishers that would get some Government funding, changes to the controversial deeming system, allowing a stock to rise above MSY in some fisheries and, optimistically perhaps, asking amateurs and professionals to negotiate over individual fisheries.
Big Game Fishing Council vice-president Richard Baker is dismissive, saying the Government is trying to look as if it's doing something while fishers are slugging it out in court.
"Commercial fishers actually smashed some stocks by 1986 which can take a hundred years to rebuild," he says.
"Meanwhile, we risk whole generations of future New Zealanders never knowing a decent fishing experience."
Vaughan Wilkinson says he doesn't always have a decent fishing experience but he likes to fish. He's a recreational fisherman - he's also fishing company Sanford's business development manager.
His affidavit to the court on behalf of the company slammed the Government for failing to tackle the problem of estimating recreational catch. Commercial fishers say recreational fishers should be licensed or registered, a request they know will not be welcome.
"Look, it's no big deal," Wilkinson says.
"If somebody gave me some form of basic obligation to report my recreational catch at a boat ramp, I'm not going to think that's any bigger deal than the fact I now have to put money in the parking meter at Westhaven when it used to be free."
He is also sceptical of all this fuss about kahawai, a view widely shared within the industry.
"From my office downtown people fish for kahawai all day long, there are schools from Wynyard Wharf to the container terminal.
"But most people in boats steam right past them; if it was such an issue they would have interacted with the schools right there. If you want to catch a kahawai, you don't have to go any further than central Auckland."
Sanford chief executive Eric Barratt says "only about 20 per cent" of New Zealanders go fishing recreationally but almost everyone buys seafood. "It hardly seems reasonable that the wider community's access to buying popular fish like kahawai is being progressively curtailed just to provide fishing pleasure of a select group who are fortunate enough to go fishing for themselves," he says.
"The non-commercial sector remains unconstrained and unmanaged."
It's possible neither side will be happy when Justice Harrison delivers his verdict. And a clear win by either side in this case looks set to only deepen the age-old conflict between the amateurs and the professionals.
