On Tuesday, he said the recent heavy swells had made some areas of the South Canterbury coastline dangerous and noted how two young whitebaiters at Smithfield on Saturday had put themselves at risk by ‘‘concentrating on what was going into the net rather than the waves that were approaching''.
‘‘Those kids were more in danger than the whitebait they were chasing.
‘‘Care is needed and it is easy to forget the danger in the surf when you are concentrating on the mouth of the net,'' Mr Shutt said.
He said the season in South Canterbury, which opened last Friday, had not really got going yet.
‘‘The high seas have meant a very slow start to the season.''
With the West Coast season yet to open, it will be some time before the delicacy is widely available in local shops. The whitebait season on the east coast runs until November 30. On the West Coast, the season is from September 1 to November 14 and on the Chatham Islands from December 1 until the end of February.
Mr Shutt's early morning patrol of popular whitebaiting areas at the weekend had shown that whitebait caught were outnumbered by fingers on the net handles up and down the beach.
‘‘One guy had got 15 and had been whitebaiting for an hour and another had been whitebaiting for less than that and had nine. One chap claimed to have caught a quarter of a cup, but had been there for most of the day.''
