Start Of Fishing By Helicopter

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31341, 11 April 1967, Page 12

Start Of Fishing By Helicopter

•‘The Press” Special Service

AUCKLAND, April 9. Commercial fishing by helicopter will begin in the Manukau Harbour this week.

Marine Helicopters, Ltd, which is undertaking the venture after months of trials, has already begun processing and packing fish in its newly completed Onehunga plant. The operations manager of the company, Mr B. C. Barrow, who is also a director, said that helicopter fishing would have been under way several months ago if the firm had not had to give local borough and city councils three months to protest about the siting of the factory. Mr Barrow said the factory was now smoking and packing mullet caught by fishermen in the Kaipara harbour. “After two days in business we can sell more smoked fish than we can get,” said Mr Barrow. “But by October, when the shoals of mullet return to the Manukau harbour, we will take over.” For catching mullet, a 1000 yd net is loaded into a hopper on the side of the helicopter, which then flies out to the shoal, drops the net around the fish and

lowers a 12ft aluminium dory on to the sea. Two men working from the dory retrieve the fish and place them in 4ft-wide buoyed nets with a capacity of 4501 b. The helicopter goes back and forth to the shore with nets of fish, which are loaded into a specially insulated trailer and taken to the factory. At the plant they are smoked in electric smoking ovens developed by Mr Barrow, a process taking two hours instead of the normal nine. From this week onward the factory will process 40001 b of mullet a week which will be sold in supermarkets. As well as processing mullet, the company will concentrate this winter on the catching and packing of sprats, both as bait and cat food. The helicopter will be used only to carry the sprats ashore. “We hope to export to America and other countries,” said Mr Barrow. “This week we are to send three sample boxes to America and others to Norfolk Island and Australia.”