Long retired commercial fisherman Norm Hawler has been reading fisheries reports and media releases.
Another month has rolled by down here in the Bay and the weather has been idyllic other than for a few rainy days and nights. I have spent more time than I wanted having to fend off all the smart arse comments from mates who read “Norms Dream” in the last issue of this illustrious paper and I do have to concede that I was somewhat under the influence when I penned that, whilst promising never to do it again. The dream quite quickly became my nightmare.
Recent events in the politics of fishing have caught my attention, but a small media release by MPI earlier in March really got me thinking about my old adage that a dead fish is a dead fish no matter who killed it.
The latest National Panel Survey (NPS) report of recreational fishing in New Zealand released in September 2024 measured “fishing events” as individual trips. In 2017–18, marine recreational fishers took almost 2 million trips; by 2022–23, this had fallen to an estimated 1,122,588 trips—about 62% of the earlier level. The report summarises this as “more than 1 million” marine recreational fishing trips per year in the latest survey.
Recent LegaSea material summarised NPS 2022–23 results by highlighting that recreational fishers land about 5,500 tonnes of finfish annually and that catch and participation have declined over the last decade. Earlier LegaSea commentary around the 2011–12 NPS sometimes paraphrased that survey’s finding of about 595,000 New Zealand residents participating in marine recreational fishing.
So let’s just go with what we have on record – somewhere around 500,000 recreational fishers in New Zealand doing about one million trips in a year and landing somewhere close to 5,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish.
In March 2026 the Ministry for Fisheries Compliance team put out a press release that caught my eye.
Fishery officers throughout New Zealand did almost 13,000 recreational catch inspections over summer and found most people followed the rules, “with compliance at about 94% across the country”. At first glance it looks good doesn’t it? Certainly shows the recreational sector in a good light. Or does it?
A 6% non-compliance rate is not great – extrapolated across the NPS survey data that represents 60,000 fishing trips where rules were flaunted. It represents a possible 300 tonnes of catch not legally obtained or not in a legal state. It represents about 35,000 recreational fishers who routinely don’t abide by the rules.
MPI Compliance has obvious limitations of manpower and resources, but their reported 13,000 catch inspections sounds impressive – but is it in real terms?
The northeast North Island, from North Cape to East Cape (Fisheries Management Area 1), accounts for roughly half of all marine recreational fishing activity, especially for inshore finfish such as snapper and kahawai – so roughly 500,000 fishing events in a year.
In the Auckland region, fishery officers did 5,806 inspections between December 2025 and the end of February 2026 – about 1.16% of the total number of NPS fishing events. Officers found 361 instances of non-compliance with the rules. Right there is the 6% non-compliance estimate. “Many fishers received warnings and more than 85 infringements were issued. Fishery officers are still making enquiries into more than 25 cases”.
The MPI Compliance media release came a week or so before the massive social media campaign directed at Minister Shane Jones and proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act. The vitriol directed at the Minister and the commercial trawl and setnet fisheries was astounding and accusations of deceitful and illegal commercial behaviour were flowing freely in the metaverse. I was immediately reminded of the wisdom of my grandfather, who regularly exclaimed that “people in glass houses should not throw stones”.
The recreational fishing industry shows an increasing propensity to insist that we should all do as they say, not as they do. Accountability for fishing behaviour extends across all extractive user groups. Or at least it should do …
