North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Ok, that yabbie looked normal when I caught him, but it turned out he was either gold plated or had a heart of gold, not sure which. You'ld have to ask the barra that just had to have him to keep. Now it shames me to say it now, but by that time in the trip I was getting a bit bored with the whole cast and retrieve thing. Keep in mind I was a callow youth, with bikes and birds as the main game. I had noticed we used to get a lot of 'follows'. You've probably seen it yourselves, those dopey buggers who are always a foot late. We didn't have Sunday TV then to teach us how to fish, so no one in the boat had a plan for that, except as it turned out, me. When you hear about the gear we were using you'll get the impression we were a dopey lot, but in some ways, Uncle was fairly smart. He was smart enough to paddle into the snags and he was smart enough to have a box full of those old Abu lures, both jointed and one piece. We had a choice of blue and bronze/brown and caught heaps of fish. Now about that yabbie. I had a plot to catch one of those 'follows' with my yabbie. I hung him on rig that that should have been ignored by any fish that had eyes and or hadn't been dropped as a baby. It involved a large hook, rubber band and a treble just for luck. It was essentially a bear trap for fish. Keep in mind I was bored. I was sitting there admiring the scenery, with my yabbie hanging a couple of feet under boat, and watching Dad and Uncle doing their stuff. That yabbie had more bling than Mikey Mike and could have done duty as a mobile in the babies room. If anyone ever tells you that an eggbeater can't 'birdsnest' you're on safe ground to tell them, "You're a bl..dy liar". I'll back you up. That Barra hit my yabbie that hard that the bl..dy bail opened, and what looked like about a hundred coils of line hit the deck between my feet. They say God looks after fools, drunks and the young and I must have been in there somewhere cause I dropped the rod and handlined him out of the snag. Its funny cause my brother is the family fisherman and he was not on that trip. I was just putting in time with the old fella, though it changed my whole attitude to Barra fishing. Not sure what my motivation was, but I wanted to take that fish home to show my brother. She was gilled and gutted and taken home whole. When home, I weighed her and she went 23lbs. Told you that was a good yabbie.

a bl..dy good yarn ian. cheers

I remember one night we put in around the fire. I had taken a flagon of white as part of my kit. Lindemans Moselle and about 3 bucks a bottle. I was fairly amazed at how keen Dad and my Uncle were to help me dispose of it. Mainly because neither of them were what you would class as drinkers, and definitely not wine. I was used to see them drinking tea or water. Keep in mind it was not precisely 'chilled'. To back me up, I remember seeing a stubbie of Gold Top sitting in our fridge from one Christmas to the next. That might also say something of the drinking qualities of Bulimba Beer. I never did get to find out because by the time I was allowed to buy a beer, Bulimba Beer was gone, swallowed up by Mr Carlton I believe. Anyway, it was all very social and by the time we went to bed, even though the fire had burnt down, torches were not required, because we were all fairly glowing. Whenever my Uncle camped near water in the Territory, he always made his bed on the roofrack of his 'shortie'. Dad and I shared a 3 man tent, and as we were both over 6 feet, space was at a premium. As you can imagine, it took a bit of time for Uncle to climb to his nest, and for Dad and I to claim our bits of territory in the tent. We had just settled, and Uncle started going off. Turns out he had lost his pillow overboard and was not happy about going to get it back. My Father was always a kindly sort of bloke and assured Uncle, "Stay up there Mate. I'll get it for you". Next thing he did was roll over and say, "Good onya Boy". As I was battling my way out of the tent to find the missing pillow, I thought, "No, good on you Dad".