Extra fisheries officers will be monitoring Auckland's Cockle Bay after a spate of fishing offences.

The Ministry of Primary Industries has released its holiday season fisheries compliance record.

MPI Compliance Director Dean Baigent says the Cockle Bay shellfish bed was under pressure this summer.

"Extremely high numbers of gatherers and poor compliance rates, so people just ignoring the rules.

"So we've actually had to step in and put in some pretty steep interventions ourselves in policing those areas."

A total of 486 fisheries offences were recorded, along with 21 animal welfare complaints.

Paigent is disappointed with the number of people ignoring paua limits and sizes.

"There's a couple of pockets around the country. In the Waikato-Bay of Plenty country there were a number of people picked up on the East Cape and in Kaitaia in particular, we had very, very poor compliance."

He says the biggest problem area was shellfish gathering.

"There's no doubt that this beautiful summer which we have all enjoyed has seen huge pressure go onto the fishery and particularly a lot of those land-based activities."