RADICAL FISHING - The food chain

With Steve Radich
The fact that apart from elephants and top tier predators like the great white shark or the big cats, all living things are part of a food chain.
This has always fascinated me.
And for those who regularly cast a line over the side, this phenomenon is frequently celebrated by the use of live bait techniques and emphasised by the occasional body-less head that we haul up.
The relationship between snapper and crayfish was first brought to my attention by the remarkable success of a bottom-bouncing berley pot full of crayfish frames.
I was fishing in the Tasman Sea by way of the Hokianga Bar where the fishing on this occasion was red hot.
Then I met a crayfish diver who had been keeping watch on a favourite crayfish hole of his.
He had noted that the crays were shedding shell and decided to return a few weeks later to see if they had hardened up.
On his return he was astonished to find the crayfish gone with a couple of very fat snapper having taken up occupation of the hole.
For those who spend a bit of time diving for crayfish, apparently the phenomenon of snapper feasting on soft-shell crayfish is indeed quite common knowledge.
However, for those less inclined to grow gills, this information is particularly new and for those who target snapper, very exciting information.
Though we are now entering the last stages of the soft-shell phase of most east coast crayfish, the implication for snapper fishers is that trophy fish are likely to have taken up residence in shallow and crayfish-rich territory.
It would seem that the seasonal pattern of snapper moving into foul shallows over winter may have always been driven by the prospect of this gourmet feast.
For those so inclined, this would suggest that rock and shallow reef fishing is definitely the way to go if a trophy snapper or two is on your winter menu.
Interestingly, recent anecdotal reports of a dearth of crayfish on Northland's east coast may be bad news indeed.
If snapper are dependent on crayfish at this time of the year, then a lack of crayfish is likely to have a negative impact on the health of in-shore snapper populations.
On the positive side of the ledger, these snapper may prove hungrier than usual and be more inclined to take what we have to offer as a substitute.
The optimist in me hopes that these reports are a misreading of the fact that crayfish are currently going through their annual soft-shell and reproduction cycles.
No matter how we look at this interesting food-chain phenomenon, it is a timely reminder of the remarkable inter-dependence of all life forms and that we upset the balance of nature at our peril.
If crayfish are indeed being fished down, the long-term consequence for snapper fishermen can hardly be good.
Maybe the steady decline in inshore snapper stocks has always been connected to over-catching crayfish.