Harvesting dinner from the beach?

I picked a few mussels and put them on the woodburner at North Arm Hut one time. They opened up with the heat - poor little buggers. And we had them with a seafood bisque. No luck since except for 2 paua at Long Harry but that was when the new hut was first built. Long gone now...

On shallow sandy, or sheltered beaches its normally possible to catch paddle crabs. The easiest way is to pin a fish frame or other bait at about knees deep then check on it every few minutes. Pick up any large crabs. They are also more common after dark. If the crab numbers suddenly disappear, you probably depleted the area around the bait, so move it further along the beach to a new spot. Another way to find them is to walk around in bare feet in a similar spot. On shallow estuary beaches, should also be able to find flounders after dark. Might take a while to find them, where a river joins the estuary is a good place to look. Need something to spear them with to...

I had a few mussels while doing the Otter Trail in South Africa. This gave me food poisoning resulting in be spending the night awake in the toilet. The next day we had a deadline to get to the Blaukrans River 11km away from the hut at a specific time. There was a 15 minute window to cross the river before the tide swung. That was a tough day, most of it spent on auto-pilot. Serves me right for cooking mussels in a marine reserve... karma it must have been.

If you are collecting paua, make sure the are the correct size, and not from a marine reserve, they later goes for all Kai Moana . Kina(sea urchin), pupu(cats eye), pipi, tuangi(cockles), mussels, scallops, Koura(salt and freshwater crayfish) are all pretty easy to source . Estuary and rocky outcrops are the places to keep an eye out for when searching for most kai moana . Most mussels you will find will be horse mussels, not the green lipped ones you buy at the supermarket . Alot of people don't like horse mussels . Mussels are nice as toroi with either puha or watercress .

So when I googled toroi I found this fascinating Masters thesis on contamination. It came out looking pretty good after being placed in a fridge to ferment for 8 months. http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/2229 I'll try the recipe but only leave it for a week, I think...

In regards to seafood New Zealand is a pretty easy place to get started, there isn't very much thats harmful (one seaweed is related to poisonous seaweeds, and of course sealife that has been in the sun too long, polluted water etc). Basically the worst you're going to get is something that tastes bad - or in trouble for taking something undersized. Anything that lives in sandy conditions can do with a soak in freshwater to remove some of the grit (pipis, cockles etc). Although this is not needed with everything (such as mussels, scallops, paua) (although paua and mussels are found on rocks). In terms of fish even the much despised spotty can taste pretty good if you cook it right. I'd avoid the hagfish because its so dam slimy and stingrays (more hassle than they're worth). Also koura - freshwater crayfish (lift up rocks in rivers and streams to find) taste amazing! boil and serve with butter and garlic.

the programme "river monsters" the other week, did a programe on giant nz eels.... a coule of divers report being ttacked by :"eels as fat as a mans waist" in nelson lakes and lake cobb..... although they didnt manage to find one that big....

Getting any sand out of mussels is not impossible if you are cooking them up on the beach. Just cut a small hole in the bottom of a supermarket bag put in your mussels and find a waterfall or stream and wash the mussels in the fresh water by letting the water flow copiously through the bag. Then steam them as usual in a billy - yum.