Western Bay of Plenty surf lifesavers have put away the red and yellow patrol flags for another season but not without undertaking a final number of rip-related rescues at the weekend.

Strong swells hitting the Mount Maunganui coast on Saturday and Sunday caused wave surges up to the top of the beach high tide mark and strong rips to form in parts.

Signs were put out warning swimmers of rips at Mount Maunganui beach at the weekend.

Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service general manager Glenn Bradley says volunteer patrols pulled three surfers who got into trouble in strong surf from the water on Saturday.

About midday one surfer was assisted from the water by the patrol and then about 2pm a father and son were both helped to shore.

'Saturday there was large surf and a lot of water moving around with a strong sweeping rip on the beach. Other than that [the two rescues] we just had a couple of call outs around the Mount,” says Glenn.

Patrols, working their last weekend of the season, put out a number of ‘dangerous rip' signs along Main Beach and were forced to move the designated swimming area a number of times due to forming rips.

'The public were pretty receptive and patrol moved the flags around and moved the flagged area to Shark Alley on Saturday because there wasn't really a suitable area on Main Beach.”

The six-month patrol season officially came to an end at 4pm on Sunday for all clubs with no drownings on the patrolled stretch of beach from Mount Maunganui to Papamoa.

Paid and volunteer patrols have been out in force since October last year.

Surf Lifesaving New Zealand will release its final figures for the surf lifesaving season later this week.