Latest updates


No baitfish, no balance

July 30, 2025 Published in The Adventurer Magazine Jack Mackerel – those slippery little fish you chuck on your hook as bait to catch something bigger – are far more important than they’re given credit for. These so-called baitfish are a fundamental food source for larger predatory fish, marine mammals and seabirds. Without them, our coastal ecosystems begin […]

A healthy Gulf starts with more baitfish in the water

July 30, 2025 Published in Mahurangi Matters. By Sam Woolford “The Ocean is not alive like it used to be 25 yrs ago where we moved from one workup to another”. A comment we often receive from Hauraki Gulf fishers who spend more time chasing the diving seabirds feeding on the schools of baitfish – referred to as […]

LegaSea newsletter #169 – Stand up for our fish!

July 21, 2025 The fish in our waters don’t belong to quota holders – they belong to all of us. They are a public resource, not a private asset, no matter how entitled the commercial sector may act. Owning quota gives the right to harvest fish, but it doesn’t mean those fish are theirs. Each year, the government […]

Have your say on Blue Cod

July 18, 2025 Blue cod are a Kiwi icon. Sadly, due to years of mismanagement, blue cod stocks around the country are severely depleted. 3 blue cod fisheries are up for review and you have a chance to have your say right now.  

Blue Cod: (The King of the South) is getting absolutely munted.

July 1, 2025 Blue cod isn’t just another fish. It’s the fish of the South, as iconic to the lower half of the country as snapper is to the north. It’s the one families plan holidays around, the one sizzling in the pan at the crib, blue cod are embedded in childhood memories of casting a line off the […]

How much do we catch?

June 30, 2025 “We don’t know what the recreational fishing sector is taking.” — Some guy on Facebook. It’s a comment we see usually from people trying to deflect the conversation away from the ongoing use of destructive fishing techniques, and from someone convinced that because they haven’t been interviewed at the boat ramp it never happens to […]

Restored abundance requires meaningful management

June 25, 2025 Published in Mahurangi Matters, June 9 2025 By Sam Woolford, LegaSea Project Lead As winter bites, many of us were left reminiscing about warmer days at last month’s Hutchwilco New Zealand Boat Show. For LegaSea, the show is a yearly highlight, connecting with passionate Kiwis about issues impacting our marine environment – from Caulerpa to […]

LegaSea newsletter #167 – Bottom trawling is so last century

June 23, 2025 In 1901, the New Zealand Times published a warning about trawling in the Hauraki Gulf. It read: “Trawling is working fearful havoc on the feeding beds and spawning grounds on which we depend for our future supply…” That was 124 years ago. Trawling is the industrial dragging of large, weighted nets across the seafloor to […]

Every day fishing is worth celebrating

June 23, 2025 In the USA June 18 is National Go Fishing Day. We don’t have an equivalent celebration of recreational fishing in New Zealand, but it’s worth considering given that for centuries fishing has contributed to our survival, and our social, economic and cultural wellbeings.  Kiwis spend a lot of money and time fishing, and the most […]