Thread: Real Whitebait!

Originally Posted by Gibo

Is smelt an enunga?? If thats how its smelt or spelt?

To me nope. Smelt are smaller and dont have the color like a enanga.

Walking the river talking to old guys one guy was throwing the whitebait back and keeping the smelt. Silly old fart. His logic was theres more to a smelt[/QUOTE]

They do that here to Toby ,theres nothing wrong with them.Think they have a better flavor personally.They're sold here as Whitebait(Paeroa) .They make good trout bait too.
Found the bigger stuff runs in the top 2' of water & the good stuff(fine bait) runs on the bottom.I pick them up with my Hasst sock where the scoop netters only get the bigger bait.

Inunga is a whitebait as well. Grows to around 10cm if left to grow. Smelt or cucumber fish is no relation. I know people eat the cucumber/smelt but I have no idea how.
Tried eating a kokapu when I was a kid. It was around 3 lbs and iirc it tasted ok. Had a gazillion bones.
Only fresh water fish I like or try to catch are eels and koura. Searun trout are pretty good as well.

Yea. Its the most common species in nz .
Part of the galaxid family? Its nearest cousin is the one that climes up the side of your bucket. Forget the name starts with h i think?

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Kokapu climb waterfalls etc and inunga dont or at least thats how I understand it.

That will be the one then

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I hope there is a feed around at the start of our season. I am home for the first week of it, at this stage. If I was there now, I would could go raid all the illegal nets before DOC find them

Talked to a knowledgable Maori lady toward the end of last season ans she said to use a bit of chilli with them. aparently it enhances the flavour and gets rid of the cucumber smell???

I've seen cucumber fish in the raikaia pouring up the edges for days on end , about a meter wide and deep . Fishing for sea runs it would seem impossible to catch a trout with that much bait about , but you can, fuck knows how !

I talked to a whitebaiter last year about the cucumber smell on late season bait. If you use abit of cilli powder with them they taste better and it helps to remove the smell.

Originally Posted by nelpop

I talked to a whitebaiter last year about the cucumber smell on late season bait. If you use abit of cilli powder with them they taste better and it helps to remove the smell.

Late season cucumber smell on bait? Bro, you need to stop covering the bucket with your old undies.

As R93 said,Kokapu climb water falls no problems. They will find a suitable pool after climbing and grow,very quiet at times and will let you pick them up if in a small shallow pool.
They climb up a very high waterfall here and into a dam from where we get our water from. We have actually had the wee buggers come down through our water lines and out of the tap lol.
Yip,white bait on tap.
We have always preferred the bigger Kokapu bait as they take less to hit the pound mark.Up here they seem to show more near the later part of the season.
Out with the wishfull thinkers,in with the bucket climbers .

The Whitebait maybe starting to move now ,kahawai have come inshore & that's normally chasing the Whitebait this time of year.
Might be the rain & the fresh down the rivers this week has got them started.

Got 1pt this morning

Originally Posted by Toby

Got 1pt this morning

Geeezeee Toby I check the courier every morning and get the same answer "nope"