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KAHAWAI

Kahawai is the second-most caught and second-most valued fish in the North Island behind snapper, in the South Island it comes third behind snapper and blue cod.

More importantly, it is the fish most likely to be caught by subsistence fishermen, by kids on wharfs, by the retired who use a small set-net in a harbour or estuary.

Kahawai are easily caught, take lures in the side of the mouth and are easily released. Best of all, once found they stay and attack lures all day, unlike say snapper or hapuku, which might go off the bite for six hours with the tide.

Kahawai are one of the few inshore fish that push schools of baitfish and krill to the surface where seabirds can get to them.

Young kahawai are often found inside estuaries where they hunt anchovies in murky waters. In the coastal seas, kahawai often mix with trevally and are thus caught as a by-catch of purse-seining for trevally. The adult kahawai swim very fast and don't appear to have any enemies but dolphins. These fish are strong fighters and will take any type of moving lure when they are feeding. On light tackle they are an exciting fish to catch and will leap from the water repeatedly in attempts to throw the hook.The kahawai has a solid body with strong swimming muscles. It swims fast and hunts small fish. It occurs in small schools of ten to hundred and also in large schools of thousands. They grow surprisingly old

Life history: Kahawai feed mainly on pelagic crustaceans when young, moving to a diet of mainly fish when old. But they also feed from the bottom, on crabs, worms, and shellfish.
Kahawai make lengthy migrations, probably associated with spawning and seasonal changes in the abundance of food. They cover vast distances quickly because of their speed. This makes them impossible to protect by means of marine reserves.
Preliminary studies have shown that these fish spawn in warm shallow water during the summer months of March and April, and huge schools move into coastal waters at this time. Mass spawning occurs in mid-water, in late spring and summer

During the winter kahawai are more common in deeper water further offshore and they may be trawled in up to 100m of water during this season.
Kahawai become up to 26 years old, which is surprising for an organism of this size and such an energetic lifestyle. These fish can grow up to 75cm in length, weighing up to 9 kg, but their average size is 40-50cm and 1-2kg in weight

Distribution: They are common all around the North Island


Diver tales: Kahawai behave like the ghosts of our seas. One moment they are there in thousands, encircling you at high speed. Then they collectively decide to disappear. They appear to be sensitive to the noises a diver makes because they will come from hundreds of metres away to investigate. Their counter-shading is so effective that they become invisible long before disappearing out of view.
Fishermen don't like kahawai because they bite much sooner than the elusive big snapper and they are but 'bait fish'. The unwanted kahawai is then discarded in a hard-handed way, left to die on the rocks. We have observed how fishermen let ten kahawai come to grief in order to catch one snapper.

-Sf-