We had heard the term "whitebait" several times while in Auckland. We figured it must be something the Maori gangs in South Auckland used to lure in their next victim. It turns out it is a tiny fish, and Kiwis go absolutely nuts over them. They are between 2 and 3 inches long, about 1/4" thick, and totally transparent. This one looks like there is color, but it is just sand.
They migrate from the sea up the major rivers to spawn all year long. There's a complete whitebait culture here. There is a fishing season for them that lasts something like 3 months, and all these crusty old buggers spend weeks catching them. Kind of like all the ice fishing shanties in the midwest, there are all these little shacks along the rivers, and the old guys have "claims" staked. They get a permit from the guv'mint each year to squat on that patch of dirt along the river bank. They use all manner of contraptions to trap the whitebait; anything from hand nets to elaborate traps.
What do they do with them you ask? So did we. It turns out they eat them. Whole. The most popular way is in a fritter. They just dump a couple handfuls of raw, whole whitebait into batter and fry it up like a pancake. Others make omelets with them. If you were to buy it, its unbelievably expensive in Auckland. Something like $150 a kilo. We came into a town called Mokau. We stopped and asked a guy if there was a cafe near by. "Right around the corner" he said; "I can highly recommend the whitebait". So, when in Rome...
Actually, it has pretty much no flavor at all, and was quite good as long as I was hungry. Pretty soon the little beady eyes started to get to me. Didn't present any problem for Cynthia who eagerly chowed my fritter. We did got some odd looks taking pictures of our food in the restaurant.
This is supposed to be a guy gathering whitebait. It's on the roof of the Whitebait Inn and Cafe where we had lunch.
So all this whitebait stuff leads me to the reason we went down to the coast from Otorohanga in the first place. As I mentioned before, the whitebait run up the rivers by the millions on the incoming tide. There is also a voracious predatory fish here called a Kahawai that likes whitebait almost as much as the Kiwis. They lurk outside the mouths of these rivers and lay waste to the whitebait. During this time, they are suckers for anything shiny that looks like a fish. I was catching them on about every other cast, and they fight like crazy. Especially on light tackle. I must have caught a dozen in an hour, and it would take a while to get them in on 6 lb test.
Back to the briny deep with ye...
Our little pink cabin in Mokau:
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