Fishing trip - Saturday May 1959 - SW Rocks Peel Island
Friday afternoon, low tide and Dad and I (12 years old) had just been down to the rocky headland at Cleveland Point. Using cotton garden gloves, we had caught a few dozen black crabs in and about the rocks for bait and with a few packets of squid and a mullet or two, we were all set for the trip on Saturday.
Next morning we were on the water at 5.00 am in a hired old wooden launch from Cleveland Point Boat Hire with a one cylinder, pull start, diesel inboard and at the stately speed of some four knots, headed over towards the western green off the SW Rocks.
About and hour later. obviously with no GPS, compass, sounders etc. - just old fashioned "seamanship" - we easily spotted the dark blue coral holes about the Bombies in some fifty feet of water.
Using hand lines, a dirty great sinker and a monsta hook on a fifty pound line, we tossed in and withing minutes were onto the parrot, snapper, cod, golden travelly and Moses Perch. Even back then the old man would not keep the "small
stuff" but nonetheless we had a very sizeable haul of fish in only an hour or so.
The thrill of a handline hooked up to a five kilo Venus Tusk Fish (Parrot) is still pretty hard to beat for a great thrill!
Of course, the usual shark feeding time was upon us and no amount of ripping in the hand lines with much gusto, vigour and swearing saved the fish from being dinner to the "men in the grey suits!".
My Dad, a Policeman, had a cutdown .303 rifle and we took turns sitting on the cabin roof, shooting round the struggling fish trying to scare off the shark(s). All of twelve years old, I was fortunate to be in the era when you were allowed to do sensible "things" if your parents exercised good old fashioned parental control and Dad and/or Mum allowed you to use your intelligence and common sense under supervision - great days they were then!
No tree huggers. fish kissers, do-gooders, Pollies, leaf eaters and the like to spoil the fun and we never had an incident and matured at a hell of an early age - not about thirty plus like it is now!
But I digress!
I do remember one enthusiastic shark coming out of the water in hot pursuit of his victim, spotting the rudder at the last minute, performing a brilliant pirouette and knocking the rudder out of it's bottem pin as he crashed into the transom - yeh, I was packing 'em that time!!
Out of bullets, we had some carbide from the old lamps and with this stuffed down the throat of the yet-to-be-caught struggling fish, it could be pitched back in again and much shouting and roars of satisfaction followed as bubbles, bits of Jo Nark and the sacrifical fish all floated to the surface thereby permitted a little more time of fishing free of sharks.
The fish were so thick, the small explosion only wetted their appetites!
There were a dozen or so gloriously deep, oily, blue coral holes to choose from and filling the boat (Yeh, we ALL did a bit of that back then!) was a foregone conclusion.
Making the long - tiring - trip back to Cleveland Point and spending hours gutting, scaling and filleting the magnificent catch of reef fish put an excellent finish to the day.
No booze, no ciggies, no smoking, no drugs/weed/speed, just good clean and old fashioned fun.
Nowadays with the entire area all silted up, there are only "rats" in the same areas with the very rare snapper or decent fish wandering about but wow, what memories they were!
Can't stop progress I know but have many a happy memory of what we old wrinklies call "the good old days!"
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