The project, now in its third year across four Wairarapa sites, set out with the theory that 50 per cent of glass eels could be taken without significantly reducing the adult eel population.
For Joseph, the work, which kicks off in August and runs until early December, is part of his long-running passion for eels. A visit to Pukaha Mt Bruce wildlife centre with his then 5-year-old daughter, who is now 17, sparked his interest, and he has been fascinated ever since.
"I was just a normal Kiwi who wanted to go out and catch an eel and then I learned about the lifecycle."
"There's very few who know very much about the early stages of the eel and that's what makes this so interesting."
Not much is known about the breeding habits of eels but it is thought the longfins may travel as far as Tonga to spawn.
Female longfins are at least 34 years old before they reach breeding size.
After spawning, both males and females die.
The larvae then float towards the coast, transforming into slender transparent glass eels as they reach land.
While migrating upriver, the glass eels change to a muddy brown colour and become what is known as elvers. It is believed up to 95 per cent may die before reaching the elver stage.
The shortfins tend to like coastal areas, while longfins seem to prefer more inland waterways.
Joseph and Mikis leave Peter to monitor the Whakataki fyke and head to the second site, a few kilometres up the road, the Castlepoint Stream.
The stream was initially discounted due to sewage concerns, but has turned out to be the site with the highest yield of glass eels, and on a particularly good couple of nights they once counted about 12,000 glass eels.
Here a similar, but smaller, fyke is set up and Joseph checks the stream for the presence of glass eels using a scoop net.
The glass eels usually migrate upriver in the dark after high tide.
But as Mikis says, they are mysterious.
"They are still the most unpredictable animals you can imagine. It's still really hard to tell when they are here or not. We quite enjoy this, the discovery part of it - you never know what you are going to get."
Joseph adds that one night he saw them "streaming in" before darkness had even fallen.
The stream is only a metre or so wide and perhaps 100mm deep, but it is not long before he finds several elvers, and within 15 minutes the fyke has yielded 21 glass eels and two bullies.
Mikis dutifully records the site, method of fishing, by-catch, the conditions and several other variables on a monitoring form.
The fyke will be checked every hour for the next four hours and the glass eels counted and recorded.
A sample of 20 will be kept aside and sent frozen to Niwa for further research, while others are destined for the Oringi on-growing facility in Dannevirke.
"If we could say when they were coming in and we got there at the right time and caught thousands and, even if 700 went back into the stream, if that 95 per cent death rate is true, we've aided them.
"If we capture them when healthy, grow them to a fighting weight, grow some for market and put some back, then you might be helping the whole species."
There is strong international demand for eel from places where populations have collapsed.
For Joseph, who sometimes brings his children on these fishing expeditions, it is also about re-learning and passing down cultural knowledge.
"Someone would have been doing a different thing with different tikanga but a lot of that hasn't been passed down, so we are lucky we are here and can learn these things."
He looks up at a valley in the hills above the stream and says he has learnt that when, the valley turns dark as night falls, the glass eels often arrive.
Like many things, you could say theirs is a project with its roots in the past but with its eyes firmly on the business of the future.
