CRAWFORD: I want to get back to that tagging briefly, in this regard. He stepped off the boat, onto this thing thinking it was dead, and they were just going to photograph it. CRAWFORD: Right. CRAWFORD: That was at age 11, when you had the outboard. LEWIS: Yes, very much seasonally. CRAWFORD: Pupping - therefore observations of big females. The amount of injuries you physically see on the Seals has increased 10-fold. You’re talking tons of stuff. It was same as the first breach. Anything else that would be considered a major change in either your vessel or your area of interest? LEWIS: Oh, yes. Probably no more than 10. And the drum just didn’t go plop. LEWIS: St. Clair beach, mainly. We thought we’d try our luck at it. LEWIS: Yeah. The Evening Post AWMM; Martyn, E. (1998-2008). As I say, most young fellas my age, the first thing they bought was a vehicle, a car. Lifetime? CRAWFORD: Any indication that the Makos are feeding on Seals? CRAWFORD: Let's pull that apart. LEWIS: Not actually feeding. LEWIS: I think the chances to see them in the harbour are greater, because the waters are confined. CRAWFORD: How long was your dinghy again? There were kids, always trying to get Barracouta. Early December, through to ... they were tapering off in April. And then into March/April, they just taper off. LEWIS: Oh, well the tackle was not heavy to hang onto. CRAWFORD: So, it was a recreational community thing? Well if your berley is going out the back, and it’s sinking, and the birds went out, the back would be the deepest set. Bear with me on the abundance issue. Conditions were rarely prime in the Southern Ocean down there, with swells and stuff. In terms of before and after berleying for sport fishing in offshore waters, what was your distribution of White Pointer observations. LEWIS: We didn’t really go looking, though. LEWIS: For pupping, the west coast of the North Island and the harbours up there, the Hokianga and all of those, and even some of those on this side, like Parengarenga Harbour. LEWIS: No, no. LEWIS: Well, that’s very near relative to the Mako Shark. But aside from cases of mistaken identity, have you heard of anybody seeing smaller White Pointers around here? We had a little finger pier off the jetty. LEWIS: Probably from the very early days. I’m pretty sure there are few fish that actually raise their heads out the water to make observations. Depends how rough it was. LEWIS: Just recollection, I think there were four along St. Clair, St. Kilda beach, and I think there were one or two off Brighton beach south. You could actually see them coming from points, come round the coast, they were coming in from the seaboard side. It’s definitely the case with the Mako Sharks we catch off the Otago Peninsula here. The rest of it was, “Oh hell, big fish there,” or “Oh it’s a Shark” - you know? Warren has over 45 years experience in the professional engineering industry. Then the fish progressed up to the Moeraki headland, north of Karitane, and then the Waitaki River run up there. What is the next major development in your history? It was a recreational past-time to the extreme. LEWIS: Most of the fish processing was at the National Mortgage Fish Agency. LEWIS: Dredging’s been going on in this harbour since 1880, to various scales. CRAWFORD: Had you tried Shark fishing elsewhere, and this was simply the place where you got results? He described the actual oars on my uncle’s boat being physically knocked into the air. Up around the Three Kings Island, there was quite a large population of White Sharks. Lewis and Barrow currently employ 17 full time staff offering a broad range of expertise and experience. LEWIS: They were anchored and left, and then checked regularly, like weekly. Vertical, straight up and down. They put it in cases and stuff, and when the fishing boats came in and unloaded, they’d load fish waste. I was in painting and decorating wallpaper and glaze here. I’m talking Napier - it was a good area for Mako Sharks. It wasn’t very far, but it was a huge step. LEWIS: That would probably be the far north. Thresher Shark, the size out here was absolutely amazing. LEWIS: Yeah. But they definitely weren’t surface to bottom nets. Going down there, and watching the trucks pull up and seeing these trucks dump there, and seeing the shapes of these extremely large Sharks. LEWIS: Absolutely. And I can’t understand why he would, as a commercial fisherman, why he would all of a sudden go to Sharks. And what you know now, given the size and dimensions, there could have been smaller Blue Sharks or something, but these particular large animals - they were Whites. LEWIS: The offal chute which was there - probably 75-100 metres to the harbour. CRAWFORD: Have you, or anybody that you know, ever seen any very small White Pointers around the Otago region? When do you figure the Whaling station shut down? If it was too rough on the outside. CRAWFORD: Did your grandfather ever talk about the White Pointers responding to the [Otago] fish sheds? Yes, we have water everywhere. [laughs]. They weren’t just a fine suspended wall. You might save up a couple of years, and then go another migration two to three years down the road. CRAWFORD: What was your first memory of the sea, or the Otago Harbour here? LEWIS: Probably more. Something that was organized by big game Shark fishermen? But was there any sense that the White Pointers in the harbour, or around that region generally, posed a threat to people? Madness, you know. CRAWFORD: Would it be the kind of thing that at the age of 11 or 12 you might go out on the big boats once per month - that kind of thing? Mainly because in that age - baby boomers I think they called it - most of the kids' fathers worked on the wharf, indirectly or directly. LEWIS: Oh hell, yes. These were definitely White Sharks. LEWIS: I never specifically tried, not sports fishing, to target a White Shark. LEWIS: No. The method they used was to tire them out on the drums, then stick these long lances or harpoons into them, subdue them, and row and pull the things ashore onto the beach. No washing or hosing it out. CRAWFORD: But it didn’t transfer its heightened level of activity to focus aggressively on you or your boat? Around Warrington up to Blueskin Bay. CRAWFORD: Let's get back to you. I bought a boat. But in those days, you could apply to the Ministry of Fisheries to get a permit to fish. No television at those times, so evening activities were rather restricted. You know, “You go back up to your side of the woods.” But very little competitive fishing south of here. 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