Night time is the right time...

Because many NZ native freshwater fish, especially galaxiids are nocturnal, night time is when they will be most active and the easiest to spot. A torch and a cheap dip-net is therefore often all that is needed to have a fun and successful foray down to your local creek.

Dip-netting by torchlight is a fun and effective way to catch such fish as Inanga and Bullies.

When water is turbid, difficult to access from the sides, or simply you can't wait, then active techniques such as pole-nets may be more effective. These methods make use of water current to wash fish from under rocks and over-hanging banks into the net and hold them there. Pole-nets are just a piece of netting slung between two poles. The bottom is often weighted down with chain, and the top has floats to keep it above the water's surface. The pole-net operator then simply occasionally lifts the net to check if they've caught anything.

Pole-netting against the current is usually most effective as fish are swept into the net and held there by water pressure.

With most species other than eels, because they are live feeders, Gee-minnow traps do no require baits to catch fish. They are generally left with their tops just above the water-level (so as not to drown fish which may need to access the higher-oxygen surfaces waters) and are tied off to over-hanging branches.

Gee-minnow traps are usually baited and then left overnight.

When the going gets tough, or simply a high level of efficiency and effectiveness in fish abundance surveying is required (for example, to assess the conservation values of a waterbody), electric fishing is often employed. This method uses a pulsed DC current to innervate the fishes swimming muscles, compelling it to swim toward the operator, whom then simply scoops the fish out of the water and into a bucket.  Apart from some short, strenuous muscle activity in swimming, the fish are largely unstressed and unharmed in this rapid capture technique.

Although very effective, electric fishing requires both expensive and specialised equipment and safety considerations and is best left for the experts and for situations like this where there is little alternative.