By AINSLEY THOMSON
Early yesterday the word began spreading along the banks of the Waitetuna River - the whitebait are running.
Enthusiastic fishermen stood for hours in the rain beside the river at the head of the Raglan Harbour to catch the first whitebait of the season.
The first person there gets
the best spot, and Tony Ell was determined it would be him. The 65-year-old Raglan man thinks he is crazy to make such an effort for such tiny fish.
But whitebait have been drawing him back to the same spot on the river for 12 years. This year the retired painter has made a few modifications to his favourite possie.
Sick of sliding down the steep 25m bank to reach the edge of the river, Mr Ell has built steps into the bank.
And to make his fishing experience a little more comfortable he has built a stand that extends over the river, making netting the young whitebait as they migrate back up the river all the easier.
A few metres up the river is his wife Judy. Competition between the couple to see who catches the most is hot.
"You don't want the women to get more," said Mr Ell. Mrs Ell said the couple were addicted to whitebaiting and had been looking forward to the season, which runs until November 30, for the past three months - about when they ran out of frozen product from last year.
Whitebait mainly consist of three species: inanga, koaro and banded kokopu. Inanga is the most common. They hatch in late autumn and are carried out to sea where they grow over the winter.
Each year the swarms of tiny fish migrate upstream in spring, prompting hopeful anglers to sit with nets set on the margins of river mouths for hours at a time.
The fish that are not caught look for a good place to spawn.
Most of the people fishing on the river have been coming for years. Clinton Davis has been coming all his life.
The 24-year-old Hamilton cabinetmaker said one of his first memories was of his parents taking him whitebaiting and tying him to a tree so he wouldn't wander off and drown in the river.
He likens the thrill of catching a net full of whitebait to a big win on the pokies. He is so keen that he often sleeps in his car during the season so he can get the best spot.
Mr Ell has a gut feeling the season will be good.
