Brief toheroa harvesting season ends

Beach low

The 1968 toheroa season — the briefest ever — ended at 6pm yesterday. Well over 150 keen men and women were on the Ninety Mile Beach around midday in the bright sunshine digging innumerable holes in search of the elusive shellfish delicacy.

Many are the reports this season of frustrated diggers who, having spent an hour or two of a Saturday afternoon on the beach, came home with only one toheroa. It is this sort of thing, they swore, that drives one to drink.

Others claimed they nipped out after work and dug up the limit in less time than it took to get there.

Others took one look at the limit-sized haul and said the whole thing was not worth it.

This year’s limit of 10 a person, with a maximum of 30 to a vehicle; digging only between the hours of 7a.m. and 6p.m., with the tides inconveniently placed as well; and not being allowed to open any below high tide mark was more than enough to put some off the toheroa for good.

A declaration by the Minister of Marine, Mr. Scott, that each toheroa over the limit will be worth a $5 fine is also guaranteed to hit hard in future.

Further compounding the situation were N.Z.B.C. reports — later corrected — that the season ended on Sunday.

The honorary fisheries inspector at Kaitaia, Mr. J. T. B. Taaffe, was promptly inundated with telephone calls asking if this was correct.

After answering the first hundred-odd calls he abandoned the phone and went to the beach, no doubt leaving it still ringing. Yesterday the beach was hard and low, showing the effect of the high tides that have swept it since the storms of August 22 and 23. The ramp at Waipapakauri, although recently lengthened by Mangonui County Council staff, stood out about two feet above the beach.

Sandhills have been deeply cut back; at places the slips are 10 or 12 feet high.

Marine Department inspectors were out over most of the season, and especially yesterday as locals sought to make the most of the season — the first for two years.

The wet beach often made it hard to locate the scattered beds and there seems no doubt that the shellfish shifted in places from day to day.

Most of the visitors from the south were holiday makers up for a day or two. One couple, at least, were honeymooners. They went out regularly each day and dug a quota.

The Star mini-bus also stopped at times on request and let passengers scratch up a few toheroa. — October 1, 1968