Lament for fishing paradise lost
The Otuwhero Inlet and its feeder waterways used to be a fishing paradise but sediment has slowly ruined them, says a long-time Nelson resident.
‘‘Just outside the drive [of the family farm], I had a couple of tobacco sticks driven into the [estuary] . . . and I used to hang a set line between them and catch snapper,’’ Charles Quintal, 85, said of his days as a boy living next to the inlet in the 1940s and early ’50s.
The estuary, near Marahau, was rich with abundant sea life, including periwinkles, pipi and crabs.
‘‘That’s what the fish used to come in to feed on,’’ Quintal said. ‘‘Snapper and gurnard would come in with the tide.’’
The rivers and streams that flowed into the inlet were also a fisherman’s ‘‘paradise’’, with the likes of whitebait, rainbow trout and flounders.
‘‘Any time, mother could say, ‘Go and get a feed of flounders, Charlie’, and I’d just go down with a spear and walk up the river,’’ he said. ‘‘If we wanted a feed of whitebait, I’d go down with two scoops and get a tin full.’’
Those waterways had deep pools and stony bottoms. ‘‘There was no silt in them.’’
Quintal said he was devastated to see the sedimentation that was now in the waterways and estuary. ‘‘I can’t
‘‘I can’t believe how [sediment has] built up. It’s such a shame.’’ Charles Quintal
believe how it’s built up. It’s such a shame.’’
The area was hit hard when exTropical Cyclone Gita hammered Tasman district on February 20. Heavy rain caused multiple slips that brought down silt and logs from the hills around the valleys that lead to the inlet.
However, Quintal said sedimentation was already a big problem. Gita just ‘‘topped it off’’.
He has first noticed the buildup of sediment when he returned to the area in 1984. ‘‘[The waterways] were full of it. I couldn’t believe it.’’
Quintal said he believed the problem started with the roads that were constructed on the hillsides around the valleys, presumably to access the area in order to plant pine trees.
A network of roads on harvested hills above the Otuwhero Valley did not exist when Quintal lived next to the estuary as a boy. The hills in the area were covered in bush then, including a mix of tall native trees along with the likes of bracken fern and ma¯ nuka. ‘‘It was a great place for pig hunting.’’
The residents, including his father, Walter, only farmed the lower reaches of the land, with tobacco and hops the main crops in the area.
Quintal and his siblings would walk across the inlet to get to school at Marahau.
‘‘It was all clear, quite solid mud,’’ he recalled said. ‘‘It wasn’t real soft, sticky stuff – you could walk across. Us kids used to walk across . . . winter and everything, you’d just take your shoes off.’’
Quintal said there were storms and floods but never any slips while he lived in the area.
He said he would like to see more native trees with stronger root systems planted on the hills around Otuwhero Inlet to try to hold back the sedimentation.
‘‘They’ve got to do something.’’