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Will take cut-bait but is best targeted with shellfish and crab baits. The elephant fish is a strong fighter on rod and line. Elephant fish are very strong fighters when hooked even on surfcasting gear. They will often swim strongly back and forth before being landed. It takes until April for the baby elephant fish to fully develop and emerge from their horny egg case. They do this by escaping down through the narrow passage at one end of the egg capsule that is normally closed off by a special valve.

At times large numbers of their discarded egg capsules are eventually washed ashore, particularly at Sumner and New Brighton Beaches. I have found these used egg capsules from Amberley to South Rakaia beaches. They look much like just another piece of washed-up seaweed. In the water, they are a yellowish-brown colour but darken to black under the sun much like a thin piece of old dried leather.

The egg capsules of the elephant fish are almost pear-shaped: being round at one end and pointed towards the end with, the escape tunnel. Egg capsules of the carpet shark and skate are smaller and square-shaped. In the case of the skate, they have tendrils at the corners. From April onwards sometimes very large numbers of elephant fish egg cases are washed up on the beaches between Sumner and the mouth of the Waimakariri River making it most likely that the shallow inshore waters of Pegasus Bay are an important breeding ground for this species.

Anglers surfcasting from Canterbury beaches twenty or more years ago were at times able to catch a dozen or more in a day on baited hooks. They are now only caught very occasionally in this way.

They are powerful swimmers and a large specimen, about 1. They seldom eat fish and when they do only very small ones. Good baits include pipi, mussel , tuatua and toheroa. Like rig shark elephantfish feed on animals, they find living on or under the seafloor. Crustaceans like crab and lobster are also excellent bait for elephant fish. Both cooked and uncooked shrimps and prawns obtainable from any supermarket are also good baits for this species. Possibly the best baits to use are small crabs split open and tied on the hook with bait elastic.

If they are too big then cut the crabs in half. Shellfish and crab are probably the best baits for elephant fish that will out-fish anything else. But I have caught elephantfish from time to time on yellow-eyed mullet, and even pre-frozen squid. A word of warning; toheroa is only allowed to be taken during a very limited season that is declared only about one day each year.

If you have fished a particular beach for many years and not caught any elephant fish you will be surprised what a difference changing over to crab and shellfish can make. The time of year.

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The best time of year to fish for elephant fish in Canterbury seems to be during December and January. Unlike bony fish, elephant fish are like sharks having no bones; their skeleton is made of cartilage, which although tough and fibrous, it is not as hard as bone. This means you get a considerable amount of firm fish fillets from an elephant fish.

Steel traces are required as the elephant fish has powerful crushing teeth that will soon cut through monofilament. Traces can also be tied from heavy monofilament 37kg or 80lb. The beach at Spencer Park just to the south of the mouth of the Waimakariri River seems to be a very good spot for surfcasting for elephant fish.

A mate of mine who has a bach on the south side of the Rangitata River mouth tells me that some evenings 20 or more elephant fish have been caught by him and his mates surfcasting across the road. I suspect they are moving around in sizeable schools. Elephant fish are by no means confined to Canterbury. They swim strongly up and down the beach when hooked.

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The elephant fish Callerhinchus milii along with the ghost sharks and spook fish belong to a group of fish known as chimaeras. Like the sharks, skates, and rays, the chimaeras are cartilaginous fish, that is, they lack bony skeletons.

The elephant fish can be immediately recognised by the unusual trunk-like snout which it apparently uses to detect its prey on the soft sandy sea floor. An elephant fish fresh from the sea is an amazing sight. Colouration is an intense silvery white with brown blotches on the sides.

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