By Joey:

It happened one night early this year when myself and fishing buddy Dazza ventured on down to have a night time fish for whiting around the Avalon area...

The wind was pushing in a westerly direction so we both knew conditions would be ideal, unfortunately, so did the professional fisherman as we were greeted by three pro boats as we entered the boat ramp. I honestly wonder sometimes what the hell I am going fishing for because when you see these guys you just know that you have no chance of catching a fish as their nets rape the bay of anything swimming just off the bottom.

Anyhow, we put the boat in the water and scooted on past another pro fisherman who had just set his nets and I wondered if the government was ever going to put our licence money to good use and buy all these guys out.

Anyway, back to the tale, as we proceeded slowly out to our destination (which was unknown) I happened to see a tiny white light off to the left about 500 metres away, I realised what it was and pleaded with Dazza to veer hard right but it was too late... the boat came to a grinding halt a mere 600 metres off shore.

Scrambling for the torch and lifting up the motor revealed what I thought would be the outcome, a severly entangled propellor in a pro fishermans net! As Dazza stood and pondered what to do I didn't waste anytime knowing full well that the owner of this net was just 500 metres away and that if he knew what we had done he would happily turn both of us into artificial reefs!

I grabbed the knife and started hacking away at the net like our lives depended on it (because they did!). My top half of the body was drenched as I could see silver flashes in the water... I couldnt believe how many and also how big the whiting were in the net and seeing some of them swim away as I sliced and diced gave me much satisfaction.

I eventually untangled the prop and we got the hell out of there, well out of sight of the professional fisherman. Oh, for the record we didn't catch a single fish, but at least we had the satisfaction of putting one of these guys fishing nets out of commission for a while, and maybe the fish might return the favour one day and jump on the end of our hooks...

Until next time...Hoo Roo.

(30 October 2001)


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