Striped marlin is one of the main target sport fisheries in northern New Zealand. Professional skippers on charter boats have provided striped marlin catch and effort information in voluntary surveys since 1975. Since 2007 private and charter skippers have provided daily records of billfish fishing. Negative binomial GLMs were used to standardise striped marlin CPUE. The annual catch of billfish, yellowfin tuna and mako sharks is described from detailed fishing club records.

The length frequency and age-length key sampling approach was employed during spring-summer 2018–19 to estimate catch-at-age for snapper caught by bottom trawl in SNA 8. The fishery was dominated by recently recruited 2016 to 2014 year classes occupying the 3 to 5 year age range, collectively contributing to one in every two fish landed. Mean age (6.6 years) was the second highest recorded estimate in 30 years suggesting further improvement to the status of the fishery, despite a continued slowing in growth rate. Spatio-temporal comparisons revealed adequate sample representativeness.

Stock assessment and management of the SNA 1 stock would benefit from estimates of snapper year-class strength, before these fish recruit into the adult fished populations. A single-phase stratified-random beam trawl survey of the Hauraki Gulf (102 stations) returned an estimate of 10.69 million 2019-year-class recruits (CV 15.9%). A two-phase stratified random survey in East Northland (102 stations), returned an estimate of 634 000 recruits (CV 18.7%). These results demonstrate that beam trawl surveys have the potential to generate year class strength estimates for 0+ snapper.

The 18th summer trawl survey of hoki, hake, ling, and associated species in the Sub-Antarctic was carried out from 23 November to 22 December 2016. All planned 81 phase one stations were completed in 20 strata. There was insufficient time to carry out phase two. Core biomass estimates were down 21% for hoki (31 098 t, CV 11.3%) compared to the previous survey in 2016, down by 20% for ling (21 270 t, CV 10.4%), and up by 35% for hake (1354 t, CV 28.5%).

This reports presents an updated Bayesian assessment of ling (Genypterus blacodes) on the Chatham Rise (LIN 3&4) for the 2018-19 fishing year. The assessment incorporated all relevant biological, commercial fisheries, and survey data available. The current status of the stock was estimated to be 57% B0 (95% C.I.: 48–66% B0). This is unlikely to change under current catches, but may decline if catches increase to the TACC.

This report describes a May 2019 dredge survey of scallops (Pecten novaezelandiae) in Marlborough Sounds, SCA 7. Significant outputs from the analysis are re-analysed 1997–2019 time series for survey (May) and season (September) biomass, derived by applying a new dredge efficiency curve and conducting projections using an inverse logistic growth model. The recruited biomass estimate for 2019 within the area surveyed is the lowest on record, and recruitment in the short-term is likely to be poor.