The commercial fishing industry has been urging the Oceans and Fisheries Minister to make anyone who reels in a fish report their catch.
Newshub has obtained the letter sent to Shane Jones, and while the minister says he has "no interest", he is investigating changes for charter boat skippers, who are part of the recreational sector.
About 500,000 New Zealanders go fishing recreationally annually.
Currently, it's not a requirement for your everyday boatie to report what species they catch or how many fish they take home.
But the commercial sector wants that to change, and Seafood New Zealand chief executive Jeremy Helson has written a letter to Minister Jones on behalf of the industry.
"We're looking for the minister to implement some rules and regulations that will ensure we have better information about the catch of the recreational sector."
A letter from industry to the Minister obtained by Newshub under the Official Information Act states: "We consider it is imperative the Government begins a programme of work to ensure that all catch is reported."
Sam Woolford, LegaSea's programme lead, told Newshub NIWA scientists already carry out catch estimates for recreational catch - and said the cost of a mandatory system would be huge.
"How on earth are you going to create a mandatory catch-reporting programme? How are you going to police it? How are you going to maintain the data? So there's going to be a huge amount of bureaucracy, a huge amount of red tape," Woolford said.
Minister Jones told Newshub he has no appetite for the idea pitched by the commercial sector.
"The Government has no mandate and certainly no interest in introducing those types of reporting requirements," he said.
Jones said he's ruled it out for the next two-and-a-half years while he's in office.
"When Rangi or Ron hop in their boat and goes and gets some kaimoana and some tucker, they're not going to be expected to fill in a form akin to an IRD form."
However, he has asked officials to investigate options for improving data from charter vessels.
"I do think there's a live issue on how much fish the very big charter boats are taking," Jones told Newshub.
Charter boat skippers are already required to report their catch.
The minister also said he's looking at whether more fish species should be added to those already reported by charter boats - for example, adding species like bluenose and hāpuku to the list that must be reported when caught in the Far North.
But he's also investigating whether charter skippers should have to report their catch electronically.
Charter skipper Darell Digges said filling out paper catch returns and posting them to officials in Wellington is archaic and he welcomes the idea of introducing an app.
"It is pretty old school, you know, trying to do it on paper and use paper-based models. I would say an app would be a lot easier," Digges told Newshub.
Charter fisher Bryan Connell agrees that the paper system is problematic, but said there are bigger issues the minister should focus on - like the current caulerpa crisis.
"We've got a biosecurity problem, we've got a clean water situation from downtown Auckland right up to Whangaparāoa," Connell told Newshub.
He thinks the commercial industry's push for better recreational reporting is a distraction.
"We have something like 50 square metres and 10 to 20 rods fishing. It's not like we have 5000 hooks or a net that will catch 30 tonnes."
Despite the minister's emphatic dismissal of forcing the public to report their catch - the commercial industry told Newshub it still wants to meet with him to talk about it.
