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AddBy: Pae Koroki27th Sep 2024 8:15AMIn the early 50s I used to go down there before the cut was put in with my father and brother and we would go home when we had 2 4 gallon tins full dad put nail holes in the bottom to let the water out ,we used a dinghy to row down about half of the road to the cut because it was all an island and he would put willow branches with the bark peeled off in the river bank at different heights and dad would have his net made from supplejack vines and a teetree handle, and brother and I would be 12 to 15 feet apart each and away from dad and a shoal would come up and say to dad, some coming now, how far out, and he says, bring them in and we would flip little stones that we had filled our pockets with from the road before you came down to what was Brains place and the whitebait would reach the net and they were still coming over the branches15 feet away and dad would have to scoop the shoal and we would have more than half the first 4 gallon tin filled in the first scoop, we kept enough for a feed in fritters, a feed in whitesauce and the rest dad would ring everyone he knew and they come with their milk billies and every person in the family got a mug of whitebait, 2 parents and 6 kids and they got 8 mugs of bait, dad had to do 2 trips rowing back up, take the net and me or my brother come back for the bait and me, sometimes if we hadn't filled the tins we would go down the road that was by the Kaituna bridge where Rendells lived opposite Waitangi or we would go to Caanans Landing,over the railway line opposite the mill that Mr Bowen had, but we always went home with those 4 gallon tins full. We used to go up to the bush at the base of the Papamoa hills past Manoweka to Jack Fagans farm and go into the bush there and get the supplejack for the net and us kids were put inside to pass the copper wire back through so dad would tie the net to the frame, just loved it and somehow dad always knew when the whitebait were running, or should say swimming, but he was great friends with Bill Reid at Maketu and I think Bill always knew when the whitebait were coming and he would tell dad, but dad would just say we're going out tomorrow the bait are running and he was right.
Alan Hutchinson (Facebook, 26 September 2024)
Alan Hutchinson (Facebook, 26 September 2024)
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It's a lean year for the whitebaiter on the Kaituna River.
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It's a lean year for the whitebaiter on the Kaituna River. (25 September 1972). Pae Korokī, accessed 26/07/2026, https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/105619
