What is Inshore Fishing
© NZ Seafood Industry Council
Inshore fishing constitutes the commercial harvesting of wildfish that occurs within the 12 (nautical) mile zone of New Zealand's territorial waters.
The New Zealand seafood industry is small on a world scale, accounting for less than one percent of global production and two percent of global sales. But in New Zealand, seafood is now the fifth largest export, earning over $1.2 billion and supporting over 20,000 jobs.
New Zealand seafood products have a strong international reputation for consistent high quality, food safety and above all, for being harvested under environmentally sustainable processes.
The most common methods of fishing used in inshore fisheries are trawling, set netting, bottom longlining and potting.
What do we catch?
Fin fish can be divided into two major subgroups-those with cartilaginous skeletons and those with bony skeletons. The cartilaginous fish include the various sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras. The extensive variety of bony fish includes dories, mackerels, breams, flat fish, tunas, and hakes.
Tunas and billfish belong to the bony fish group, but are all highly migratory and can be regarded as a distinct group.
The predominant fish species caught by New Zealand's inshore fin-fishermen are Snapper, Blue Cod, Red Cod, Bluenose, Monkfish, Tarakihi, Warehou, Gurnard, Trevally, Rig, Blue Moki, Flounder, Groper, Turbot, School Shark and John Dory.