As a follow-up to The New Zealand Initiative's recently released report, What's the Catch?, Randall Bess is travelling overseas to research some of the different ways recreational fisheries are managed. In his overseas travels, he first visited the remote northern California coastline. Read more

John Steinbeck once said that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses had it coming. While a novice fisher might find this saying humorous, a veteran likely won’t, since much can be said about the challenges of fishing for sport. Read more

There is a fishing saying, ‘When in doubt, exaggerate.’ At least that is what comes to mind when the fishing industry repeatedly refers to the quota management system (QMS) as world leading. In some respects, the QMS may well have maintained world leading status after 30 years, but certainly not with respect to holding commercial fishers accountable for their catches. Read more

The Auckland housing situation has been developing for several years, if not decades, but only recently has the government acknowledged it is at a crisis point. The continued denial that a crisis was looming allowed the problem to grow into something that will take considerable time and effort to fix. Read more

The launch of the first report on recreational fisheries caused quite a stir. The media sent alarms that decreasing daily bag limits were inevitable, and that we were running out of fish. Read more

The easiest way to catch a fish is to visit the local New World store. Commercial fishing can deliver seafood far more cost effectively than the average recreational fisher. Read more

Where to for recreational fishing as commercial industry targets double the exports? There is a saying, 'If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there would be a shortage of fishing poles.' Well, perhaps we should first concentrate on the shortage of fish. Read more

‘Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for life. Give him someone else’s fish, and he’ll vote for you.’ Politicians obviously know about this saying. Read more

We all know the observer effect: Behaviour changes when someone is watching. Drivers suddenly become law-abiding near speed cameras or at the sight of a police car. Read more

Political hierarchies are like fish: both rot from the head downward. So, when fishing starts to stink, we need to first look at the fisheries management hierarchy. Read more