New Zealand whitebait

1. New Zealand whitebait • whitebait make their way upstream from the sea, swimming near the river’s edge. Whitebait can be caught from many New Zealand river. Most people in New Zealand like to use whitebait for whitebait fritter or patties.

2. In autumn, adult females release their eggs among vegetation around the high-water mark on a very high (spring) tide. Males release milt (sperm) to fertilise the eggs. When the tide recedes, the eggs are exposed to the air for a number of weeks but remain moist among the vegetation. .

3. Eels • Lakes, rivers and streams. Mostly well inland from the coast. They hang around weeds and banks so they are less easy to be found by predators.

4. Longfin eels breed only once, at the end of their life. When they are ready to breed, they leave New Zealand and swim 5000 kilometres up into the tropical Pacific to spawn, probably in deep ocean trenches somewhere near Tonga. • When they reach their destination, the females lay millions of eggs that are fertilised by the male. The larvae are called leptocephalus and look nothing like an eel – they are transparent, flat, and leaf-shaped. The larvae reach New Zealand by drifting on ocean currents .most people if you are catching eels commercially they catch them with nets and you can catch them with spears.