The proposed changes towards the snapper allocation pits leisure fishermen against commercial operations. Harry Pearl reports.
In 1999, Darryl O’Keefe ended up being made an offer he could not refuse. Their father-in-law, Roy Andrews, who’d spent years focusing on the mussel barges dotted on the list of islands that are offshore Coromandel and Colville, had heard of prospect of a fishing charter away from Coromandel city.
The mussel farms – as well as the barges that harvest them – attract ratings of snapper. The mussels and shells that fall off the buoyed longlines as they are crushed during processing are really a prepared meals supply when it comes to scavengers.
Mr Andrews works the barges throughout the then take people fishing at the weekend – anchoring off the neat rows of mussel longlines sheltered inside the islands week.
Finally, in 1997, the demand was decided by him was here and purchased a barge entirely for fishing. He called their charter Mussel Barge Snapper Safaris and, 2 yrs later, asked if Mr O’Keefe wish to work with him.
The fisherman that is”maddest ever” promptly tossed in their task as being a carpeting layer in Napier and headed north. A decade later, he along with his wife purchased the company.
Now, he states, the charter ferries about 9000 recreational fishermen to and through the mussel farms every year. He runs two ships – a 3rd is likely to be ready by Labour sunday – and employs two different people, a youth mate and their brother-in-law.
