New Zealand Land Based Game Fishing Club

17/11/2025

Apologies that this is a bit long but you really do need to be aware….. This is a heads up on what’s happening to your fishery, details of the One Ocean Protest this Saturday, and how you can easily make a submission to the Govt via the LegaSea website. So…

Right now we are seeing the biggest assault on the public of NZ’s rights and access to our fisheries in the past 35 years that I’ve been involved… It’s time to stand up and show numbers…if this flops we’re f # !.

Wake up!…As you slept, the doors have closed, you’ve been shut out of your traditional inshore fishing grounds around the Hauraki Gulf and many other areas are being closed because of the mismanagement of fisheries. (North Island Crayfish & Scallops)
Now the heist is on! Minister Shame Jones is set to allow the commercial catch & sale of, up until now, 19 protected reef fish species and marlin… 35 years after closure to rebuild our commercially decimated world class fishery.

HAURAKI GULF

It’s all over - 19 New Marine Protection Areas have been put in place. The public of NZ are now forever locked out of traditional inshore fishing grounds and around many islands in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park…

It started as SeaChange. A groundbreaking collaborative multistakeholder working group convened in 2013 by the Auckland and Waikato Council to address the supposedly dire state of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park for future generations. It was agreed by all that there’d be no cherry picking of aspects of the completed plan that were agreed by all.

What happened? Central Government got involved is what happened. Shane Jones has smashed the public outa the park and left his commercial fishing quota owning mates to continue business as usual.

The Greens have been appeased….loving their marine reserves. While outside of the line goes to hell in a hand cart.

There’s NO ALTERATION TO COMMERCIAL CATCH METHODS OR LIMITS.. …Throw in some customary take and commercial gill netting in supposedly essential high protection areas as smoke screens and call it fisheries management🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤯🤬 its like something invented by Blackadder - a plan so cunning that you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel!

I’ve posted it before..
The late Elinor Ostrom conducted global research and wrote extensively on privatisation of rights. Short answer - the rights / quota holders always get their way. Ostrum got a Nobel prize for her work, all we get in NZ is a headache and more marine reserves.

Marine reserves aren’t fisheries management. If all you do is shift the effort across the line on a map…or throw the dog turd over the fence onto your neighbour’s lawn. Marine reserves aren’t fisheries there to protect unique and fragile environments.

SALE OF REEF FISH

While the Govt is busy shutting the public out of inshore and coastal reef fisheries, with apparently necessary High Protection, Shane Jones (Previously Chairman of Sealord, one of NZ’s largest quota owning corporations) is about to announce regulation change to allow commercial fishers to target and land ALL CURRENTLY PROTECTED REEF FISHES. The contradiction only highlights the contempt for the NZ Public and the bureaucratic and regulatory capture by commercial fishing interests of our fisheries & marine lmanagement.

COMMERCIAL FISHING MARLIN

But Wait… There’s more!while you’re bent over with your cheeks parted and there’s no l**e in sight, Shane Jones is set to announce a change to commercial fishing regulations to allow the sale of Marlin caught in NZ.

Shane Jones is proposing to go back on a NZ First & near 35 year Government commitment, that Marlin caught in NZ waters could not be sold. Back in 1987, what had been a world class billfish fishery had been decimated to the point that charter boat catch rates had plummeted to catching one fish per ten days of fishing. It took a group of experienced and wealthy recreational fishers to threaten legal action to get the then Minister of Fisheries to act.

The Billfish Moratorium was agreed in 1987 which included all marlin & broadbill species. The banning of the sale of marlin was legislated in 1991.

What resulted was a steady and sustained rebuild to this day of what is now indisputably the world’s best & biggest striped marlin fishery.

What happened to broadbill was another diametrically opposed horror story. The 1991 legislation excluded broadbill, and enabled commercial fishers to land their “bycatch” to develop tuna surface longlining.

The rest is history… commercial fishers ignored the bycatch only agreement & surface longlined using light sticks to great effect targeting broadbill. (Having worked in financing their boats at the time, I’m aware that despite ongoing claims of “just bycatch”, 35% of their income was from broadbill.)

Annual commercial catches of broadbill quickly grew from around 60 tonnes per annum to over 900 tonnes a year.. It took the Govt over ten years to take any action …but then in October 2004, instead of protection, they legitimized the catch & created Quota, with an 885 tonnes allocated to commercial fishing, which was then tendered and sold to be fished by foreign boats.

Shane Jones now wants to empower commercial fishers to land marlin “bycatch” for what will initially be nominal commercial value. Until the catch increases. Which with $$$ as the incentive, it has never failed yet. …or if waste is the concern, why not continue having it with no commercial value an land the bycatch to Kai Ika for distribution to communities that really value it.

VIABLE ALTERNATIVE��With the Governments strong focus on unlocking the economic value of our fishery, rather than focusing on a handful of dead commercially caught marlin, why don’t they, like the rest of the world, invest some money and focus on marketing NZ and build investment in our charter boat fleet to fish our world class tourist fishing destination…

We now have a year round sports fishery for Marlin, Tunas, Broadbill & Kingfish, which will provide far greater and consistent economic return than a handful of dead marlin.
The NZ government saw fit to promote it back in Zane Greys day. What’s changed? Privatisation is what’s changed!
The Sport Fishing Council has fought hard to protect the public’s interest in the fishery. Why doesn’t the Govt leverage off that value?? Do we have to do it for them?

27/10/2025

NZLBG Club Coromandel trip: Fishing dates are November 22-23rd.

Non-members are welcome but will need to join the club for a year.

Cash prizes: Longest Snapper $250, Longest Kingfish $250

If you are interested in joining us for this trip, please email [email protected] for more info

Send a message to learn more

14/01/2025

Got out for a day trip with Gary yesterday. I wasn’t sure how the fishing would be with the full moon but it turned out the fish were hungry. Live baits were easy to come by and within a couple of hours Gary got dusted by a reasonable kingi. About 45 minutes later he was into a much better fish but this time managed to stay attached. After a 20 minute scrap he had a 27kger on the rocks. We stuck it out for another few hours but my livebaits and stickbaits went untouched.

21/11/2024

🤷‍♂️🤙😎

03/11/2024

With Ross and I both having young families now it's been a long time since we have fished together from the rocks, so when Ross suggested a day trip to Coro with Gary (and with the wife's blessing) I was all in. Dust off all the gear, up at 3:30am for the dive ahead we originally planned to fish square-top but the wind direction would have made that very uncomfortable as the day progressed. Instead, we opted for launching at Waikawau Beach to fish an area none of us had really explored. We jumped off on one of the small islands to the south, a good-looking ledge for targeting kings with good current lines. Kahawai were there in good numbers so it didn't take long to get some live baits swimming and within about 40mins of landing on the bricks Gary was in to a scrappy kingfish. This fish was long but not in great condition (girth), even so it still weighed in around the 22kg mark and gave Gary a good workout. We picked up a few good snapper at this spot, but with the wind picking up and it being about 2hrs after low, we decided to move and find something a bit more "snappery" without the 15-20kn gusts in our face. This second spot produced the goods with a solid snapper bite for the 2hrs we fished it producing lots of fish in the 2-3kg range. We scouted the coast for future spots as we headed back to the beach. I was back home at 10:30pm. Good to have some fish in the freezer!

08/09/2024

Selling off some gear that just doesn't get used.
For further details call Todd 021525689
Pickup or view Maraetai.

22/07/2024

Got out for a midwinter snapper mission close to Auckland on Friday. Heavy cloud cover and plenty of berley helped the fishing and landed a couple of better specimens above the 70cm mark. Kept one of the bigger fish and a few pannies for a family lunch the next day. All the heads and frames went in the smoker so nothing went to waste

21/05/2023

Dream Catch!! …LBG and on 10kg!

Absolutely amazing 61.5kg landbased Southern Bluefin Tuna by Andre Stamoulos on 10kg line. Big congratulations from the Busted Fishing tribe and we couldn't help but notice the Busted Fishing sticker on his gaff. Well done mate 👊👌

18/05/2023

I’ve been thinking of ways to maximise freezer space and minimise plastic with my home made berley and came up with the idea of a ‘made to measure’ wooden frame/mould. Seemed to work ok although getting the bombs out was a bit of a pain. As for the berley, it worked nicely on a solo mission this week. Released a snapper just over 70cm (plus an unintentional long range release on a similar size fish a few metres from the rocks) and kept a few up to 60cm for a feed.

06/11/2022

Spent a couple of days fishing the east coast this weekend with Benjamin and Gaz.
Despite looking fishy as hell, the first ledge we fished on Saturday was pretty slow going and around the low we packed down and moved to a another ledge inside a bay, surrounded by much shallower water and knarly terrain. Sure enough as soon as the berley hit the water, fish started to appear and we ended up having an excellent snapper session, nabbing a lot of fish in the 3kg-5kg range with a couple that would have gone 7. We dropped some big boys here and had one fish in the burley that would have given the magic number a nudge.
Despite swimming livies all day, we didn't manage to get the attention of any kingfish, although Benjamin did manage to pickup a small 90cm model on a pillie that is now brining in my fridge.
On the way home we jumped off a very low-lying piece of rock that, because of it's geographical positioning and elevation, would rarely see people standing on it. At this stage our last berley was slop and so Benjamin spooned a couple of handfuls off the ledge in a bucket of water. Almost instantly double figure snapper appeared on the surface and began charging around picking up the scraps like hungry kahawai. We quickly binned a couple of fish before the swell started crashing over the ledge and forced us off.
Day two and 25kt easterlies saw us forced into a corner and fishing an unlikely ledge that looked more like a kingie spot than snapper. We managed to load up on eating size fish but unfortunately kahawai were very scarce and we didn't get a chance to swim any livies. We gave it a good nudge for a few hours before pulling the pin and having a fun trip back with a massive sea and wind behind us.
Great weekend, great fun and excellent fishing with some top blokes on a new stretch of coast for us.

30/10/2022

On Sunday our members braved the very poor weather conditions to meet for our AGM. Lots of good conversations covering fisheries management, fish measurement to weight tables, upcoming competition formats.

I will publish our Far North competition dates shortly, hopefully some of our Facebook followers can join us and see why being part of the club is so worth the annual membership fee.

Congratulations to this year's trophy winners.