Far North students learn how to use traditional fish trap

Taipa Area School students scored a healthy haul of snapper, parore, mullet and other fish using an archaeological stone fish trap near Kerikeri

Using a stone trap hundreds of years old has given some Far North students an idea of how Māori traditionally caught fish.

Year 9 students from Taipa Area School enjoyed a taste of fishing the traditional way as part of their end-of-year break-up, using a stone fish trap that is hundreds of years old.

The students and teachers Meillia Kee and Julian Atkinson joined Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga staff to see if the archaeological fish trap at Quince’s Landing, about 15 minutes away from Kerikeri, still does the job.

And, as the students found out, it certainly does.

The fish trap is an ingenious device that was used by Māori to lure fish upstream at high tide, trapping them behind a net as the water recedes. The upper part of the stream is all but blocked off by a rock wall, with only a narrow opening which allows the water to flow out as the tide goes out.

With the narrow opening blocked by a curtain of brushwood fixed in place with stakes and rocks, the fish are unable to escape, and once the tide is out become easy pickings for people using handnets or just their hands.

The fish were present in abundance – 22 in total, including two legal-sized snapper (minimum 27cm long). They also caught parore, mullet and other fish.

The students then learned how to flake obsidian to make a sharp blade that could be used to scale and gut their fish before being cooked on an open fire – again using skills that would have been used by their tūpuna.

The fish trap experience was fun and educational, according to Kee, with the added benefit of a lot of fish to take home.

“It was a great way for our rangatahi to see this simple but very effective technology in action, " she said.

“It really was a hands-on learning experience which everyone really enjoyed.”