 |
mainsponsor |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Got a fishing story you'd like to share?
|
|
|
|
 Me and my magnificent maggotsBy Dazza I remember as a kid, I fell in love with fishing and tried so hard and for so long to catch a decent fish, albeit, without a whole lot of joy. Then, in my early teens I lost a little bit of interest, only to have it re-kindled when I started listening to Rexy on the radio every Friday night. So I got my old passion back and got my dad to start taking me fishing again. But, the results, (or lack of) were the same. We used to catch a few mullet off the old Ferguson St. pier in Williamstown, with a little pencil float, which was good fun, but we never caught anything special. Then one day. in 1989 I think it was (I was 14). my dad told us he was going to Essendon angling club, to hear a bloke called Terry Shepard talk about a relatively unknown form of fishing in Australia, at that stage. It was called coarse-fishing. And he said I should go along. I might learn something new that might help me to actually catch a few half-decent fish. So off we went to the club, which was situated not far from the anglers tavern on the Maribyrnong river in Essendon. We got there, and this pommy bloke, Terry Shepard, showed us quiver-tip rods, and no.12 and 14 size hooks!!! and these little berley cages called "swimfeeders" that you had on your line. You'd fill 'em with breadcrumbs which come out in the water and attract fish. Sounded interesting. But what do you catch, and where do you use it. "Well you can fish just out here, if you like, and you'll catch some really nice bream." Bream! Wow. I've never seen anyone catch a bream before. We'd tried stacks of times, but never even seen one in the flesh! I'd seen them and read about them in Rex's book though. So me and my dad bought a quiver-tip rod and all the gear, and got set up and ready to go try our luck with our fancy new gear. But we needed bait... and that was... MAGGOTS!!!! I was dumbfounded by the idea that fish would eat bloody maggots! But that's what we'd been told, so we went and bought some from Noel Clark in Essendon. And off we went. And never in my wildest dreams did I think we would catch so many bream. We caught about 14 I think, which doesn't sound that many I know, but to me it was unbelievable. We'd tried so many times to catch something in this bloody river, the Maribyrnong, and we'd never caught a damn thing. And here we were catching bream after bream after bream. My new quiver-tip rod instantly became my most treasued possession. But there was not one other person fishing!!! I wanted, so badly, to show off but there was no-one. Anyway, we went home happy as Larry anyway. I was already thinking about where we were gonna try our new gear and methods next weekend. The next Friday night, I was at home listening to Rex as usual, and he had reports of good bream being caught in the Yarra... opposite the tennis centre of all places!!! Yes! I thought. We'll go there and clean up there too, and show people just how good our new gear was and just how expert we'd become in catching bream. So Sunday morning, armed with quiver-tip rods, no.12 hooks, plastic berley cages, breadcrumbs and, of course, maggots!, we drove through the city, and headed for the national tennis centre. The Yarra was a filthy brown colour, as always, but there was already a heap of guys fishing there. A lot of older blokes actually. And none of them had our gear! And already, even at 7.00am, there were already people jogging, and roller-blading and walking along the river. "Ha! we'll show em all how it's done", said my dad confidently. I couldn't wait for my first bream. I started setting up my rod. Then one of the other blokes fishing comes over. "Bloody hell, that's a thin bloody tip you've got on that rod of your's mate." He'd never seen a quiver-tip before. And then he saw my dad's fancy rig. "What's all this crap?!?" My dad tried to explain the logic of the rig. "I bet you spent a bloody fortune and all this new fangled gear didn't ya mate. That rod tip'll bloody snap if you get a decent fish mate. And whaddya wanna use all that rubbish on your rig for?!? You don't need all that. What you got for bait?" By now a lot of the other anglers had come over to check out, and laugh at, our fancy new rods and rigs. "Maggots mate." I said, proudly displaying my seething tub, crawling with the biggest, fattest, juiciest maggots you'd ever see. "Maggots!?! Mate, you're not gonna catch a bloody thing with them." With that, they all chuffed off back to their own rods, some of them still snickering. "Don't worry mate, we'll show em," my dad said re-assuringly. My dad, being a bit better with knots than I was at that stage, finished his rig first. I was still going with mine while he baited up, berleyed up his cage, and chucked her in. Much to our embarrasment, the berley cage wasn't attached properly to the tube on the line, and it flew off in mid cast. "Bloody hell," I heard one of the other blokes say, trying not to laugh. My dad looked the other way. Now it was my turn. I cast out, and made the fatal mistake of not looking to my left before I did. And sure enough, a bloke having his Sunday morning rowing session just happened to be flying past, just after my bait hit the water. And despite my pleas to him to stop, he kept on rowing, and... SNAP... I lost my rig on my very first cast of the morning. It had taken me 20 minutes to do my rig. And now I had to do anohther one. To make things worse, the old bloke who'd been so cynical, had just pulled in his first bream, It probably wasn't quite legal size, but it went into his bucket regardless. Not a great start. So I went to work on another rig again. Meantime my dad had replaced his berley cage and cast out without incident this time. But after striking excitedly at what he thought was a bite, found himself snagged, and... SNAP... he too had to start on a new rig. We were both starting to feel a bit embarrassed by all of this, and I rememeber thinking, "Maybe we should have gone back to where we were last week, where there was no-one else fishing!" We also realised that fishing here was going to be harder than we thought, as the walking/riding/roller-blading track was right next to the riverbank, and we were fishing almost on the track itself. So when I finished making my second rig, I suffered the indignity of collecting a passing jogger when I attempted to cast out. I ended up getting my miniscule no.12 hook caught in this bloke's shirt. All this was in full view of not only the other blokes fishing, who no doubt, found enormous amusement in my antics, but also the few people that had arrived early for their Sunday picnics on the banks of the Yarra. After that little situation was resolved, and my jogger mate continued on his merry way, I had to wait for so many bloody roller-bladers to go past that I thought I might never be able to cast out. Finally there was a break in the crowd, and I cast in, using a bit of extra oomph! when I did. Thankfully, I didn't collect any roller-bladers, joggers, rowers, or anything else, and I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. Fair dinkum, I was just happy to have my bloody rod in the water. Over the next hour or so, the other blokes caught a few bream with their conventional gear, while me and my dad, with all our flash, expensive new gear, sat there and didn't get a bite. Then finally, my dad lifted his rod, and much to my relief more than anything else, had a fish on the end. And even better, it was a bream. He brought it up, and he looked at me with a relieved smile on his face. "Got one." It wasn't huge, but it was reasonable, and it was a fish, and that's all that mattered. "Oh, you got one did ya?" said the sarcastic old prick fishing just down from us, as he staggered over to have a look. "You can go home now boys. You got one ay" he laughed. 'Good on ya mate,' I thought. 'Old bastard, I'll show him.' For the next couple of hours we caught a few more between us, keeping up with the other blokes around us, so we were going alright. I think I'd got 2 and my dad had 2, while our best mate beside us had 3 for himself. It was about 10.30. A Beautiful November day, heaps of people around now, and many were watching all of us blokes fishing, asking questions like "Are there really fish in there?" and "Are you really catching them on maggots?" and the like. People couldn't believe that we could possibly catch anything in the Yarra in the heart of the city of Melbourne. I had about 6 people talking to me, asking me questions, which I was loving, when suddenly, my quiver-tip didn't just quiver, it almost went in the drink! I struck, and straight away, knew I had a good one on. I fought this fish for about 10 minutes and by the time I had 'colour', I had about 20 people crowded around me. Joggers and roller-bladers had stopped to watch too. My quiver-tip rod looked very impressive, bending from the middle! When I saw the size of this bream, I nearly collapsed in shock. It was huge. "Excuse me please," I could hear my dad saying as he made his way through the adoring crowd to help me with the landing net. After some anxious moments, my monster bream was safely in the net and on the bank, with the crowd 'ooohing and ahhhing'. I was centre-stage... and loving it! Even the sarcastic old bastard couldn't resist coming over and having a look. "Geez. that's a bloody big one. Over a kilo I reckon. You catch that on maggots did ya?" "Yep!" "Hmmm, yeah good one." as he smiled sheepishly and went back to his rod. I even had some chick taking photos of me fishing, for some local newspaper. I was the proudest kid in the world at that moment. It was over 40cm, and over 2 and a half pounds. I couldn't have been more pleased. For the rest of the morning and afternoon, my dad and I proceeded to catch another 5 or 6 bream, and I think we had about a dozen by the finish, while no-one else caught anything for the rest of the day. We had out-fished them in every way. And I bet a few of them went out and bought maggots for bait next time they went bream-fishing. Some of them may have even went out and bought themselves some coarse-fishing gear perhaps. I know that by the early to mid nineties, coarse-fishing was all the rage and everyone was doing exactly the same as us, when fishing on the Maribyrnong or the Yarra, when in search of the mighty southern bream. (19 August 2002) |
This website and its contents © Parkhouse Pty Ltd 2002 unless otherwise attributed.
View our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement and Credits. Site by Parkhouse.