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Got a fishing story you'd like to share?
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 The Bottle Shop TunaBy Paul B. Kidd The bloke at the local grog shop had been robbing me for years. But it suited me to go there, even though I knew I was paying five bucks more for a carton of beer than I would at the discounters. I could park right out the front, he was always good for a chat and he trusted me enough to cash a cheque for me if I was ever short. Over the years I could have saved a fortune by going elsewhere, but we had become good mates and the money wasn't all that important. He was a good bloke. I'd never really thought about getting even with him until a while back when my young bloke Ben and I had just returned from a long day's fishing off Sydney and we called in for a carton of ice colds on the way home. "Been fishin', boys?" the old burglar asked us. "You look as though you might have caught something". And we had. But not what we wanted. We had gone out on a mate's game boat hoping to get big yellowfin and albacore tuna, but all we managed to catch was a boatload of striped tuna - or skipjack tuna as they are known in some states. The stripeys were up around the 5kg mark and great fun to catch on 3kg and 6kg line, but they were a blood tuna with rich, red flesh and lousy to eat, not like the delicious pink-fleshed albacore and yellowfin tuna. And seeing as I'd promised about 500 people some tuna steaks, it had been a disappointing day. Not all tuna are good eating and on a scale of one to 10, the poor old stripey would rate about a two. However, the Greeks and Italians love it because they know how to marinate and cook it in oils and spices and disguise the rich, bloody flavour. As disappointed as we were at not catching some eating fish, I had still brought home three good-sized stripeys for our three cats. They loved it and they would save me a fortune in canned food over the next couple of weeks. Besides, I love the way the cats react when I plonk a whole tuna across their bowl. They flick their tails and parade around the poor old stripey as they take jabs at it with their claws before they tear bits off it and eat them. So when my thieving friend at the bottle shop inquired as to the days results I casually answered: "Yeah. We didn't do too bad. Just a whole heap of tuna." "Tuna!" he exclaimed. "You're kidding. My wife loves tuna." I stopped dead in my tracks. The only tuna he would ever have had would have been the white-fleshed variety from the markets, the southern bluefin, albacore or yellowfin. He wouldn't know one from the other and assumed they all tasted the same. But more importantly, to him they all looked the same. I decided to do him a deal on the stripey. And if he started to grizzle and whinge later on that it tasted lousy and made his kids crook, then I would simply say that it must have been the way he cooked it. I explained that I had only brought a few tuna home and that they were promised. By now he was pleading. I winked at Ben who joined me in the con and begged me not to give one away on the pretext that he wanted to show his mates what he had caught. "Besides," I lied, "they're $20 a kilo at the markets at the moment," knowing full well that he wouldn't know that it was the yellowfin and albacore that was bringing the big bucks. If stripey ever made it to the markets it would be lucky to bring a dollar a kilo. "I'll swap you a case of beer for one," he said, tumbling into us at a million miles an hour. We had him. "No Dad," Ben protested. "They're my fish. I caught them. You can't do it to me." The more my kid looked distressed, the more the old shafter was determined to get one of those tuna. Brushing my kid aside, I begrudgingly swapped the stripey for a case of beer, assuring him all the time that he had come out on top in the deal. Ben's whingeing turned to shrieks of laughter as we walked out of earshot with our free case of beer. "Got him," I said to my son. "I can't wait to see the look on his face when he tells us what it tasted like." The following day curiosity got the better of us and we fronted up at the liquor store. "How was the fish?" I enquired. "I haven't had it yet," he said. "My wife is preparing it for tonight and we'll have some friends over for a barbecue." Yuk. Barbecued stripey. What a horrible thought. I nearly threw up. And he was going to feed it to his friends! I felt like warning him, but the joke had gone too far. The next day curiosity got the better of us again. Half expecting him to hit me over the head with an empty wine bottle for embarrassing him and his family in front of their toffy friends who had come over for a whoop-up tuna treat, I asked: "How was the fish." "It was sensational," he said. "Best bit of fish we've ever eaten. I'll take as many of those as you can catch." I was dumbfounded. No one could eat stripey and enjoy it. Except my greedy cats. Admittedly, I had my case of beer and I was a mile in front, but my joke had backfired. Maybe I had been wrong about stripeys. Out of curiosity I pulled one out of the freezer, thawed it out and barbequed a fillet. It was absolutely dreadful. A week later I called in again. The old scoundrel was not to be seen. "Dad's on holiday," his daughter told me. I couldn't help myself. "Did you really enjoy that fish?" I asked, desperate to know. "You mean that tuna?" she replied. "Hell no, Dad didn't eat it. He sold it to the Italian guy next door for $80. He hasn't stopped laughing since." (21 May 2002) |
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