Swandives

Well, it took a while, but I finally have a name for the previously-unidentified fish I caught up at Hinchenbrook in Queensland. It’s a Dorab Wolf Herring! And a pretty big one at that - they grow to 1 metre in length but are rarely seen bigger than 80 centimetres, according the Australian Museum.

(As an aside, have you ever checked out the Australian Museum website? I thoroughly recommend it. It’s simply awesome - http://australianmuseum.net.au)

Anyway, the only reason I found out was thanks to the fabbo people in the Australia group at Saltwater Index. Big thanks to E-Rik and Paul. I have been wondering about this one for almost three years now!

What do stream fishermen do when the season’s ending, the trout are spawning and the long wait for spring and the return of river fishing begins? Why, they plan their next fishing trip and attend fly fishing film festivals!

Australia is better-known for its outback wilderness and, with a sea-girt coastline, it’s not surprising that salt water fishing dominates. But the story of the introduction of trout and salmon to the waters of the southern hemisphere is, like so many of the really interesting aspects of our history, largely unknown to most Australians.

Fortunately, Tasmanians and the good folk at Gin Clear Media have told the tale in a way that is guaranteed to have any fly fisherman drooling at the prospect of fishing in Tasmania. The Source - Tasmania is the feature at this year’s RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival. It begins at the beginning - in 1864 when Sir James Youl successfully orchestrated the introduction of more than 100,000 salmon and trout to the River Plenty. No mean feat in the days when refrigeration was practically non existant. The third time’s a charm, as they say; Youl had two unsuccessful attempts before he hit on the magic formula - packing ova in moss in the ship’s ice-house. The trip took 91 days but the surviving eggs went on to become the source of the trout population in Australia and New Zealand.

Fast forward 145 years and recreational trout fishing in Australia is big business. In the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales alone, it is estimated to inject $70 million a year into the local economy and support 700 jobs.

But it’s Tasmania that literally shines in this film. If you weren’t planning a fishing trip before seeing the movie, you will afterwards. Corny as it sounds, it makes you realise what an incredible country we live in and fishing lets us see it at its most beautiful.

Film maker Nick Reygaert hosted the evening at the Palace Cinema in Leichhardt. His perspectives on filming and fishing were fabulous. And it wasn’t hard to tell the film festival goers from the ordinary film buffs - as we walked up the stairs, snatches of conversation swirled through the room like flies caught in a back eddy. They were all about fishing; when, where, how big, the rig, the fly, the fight. Just thinking about it makes me long for those clear mountain streams. But if your motto is along the lines of Work to Live, Live to Fish, then hopefully the clip below will help tide you over until the next outing.

As you can see, Swandives is in the middle of a renovation. The swan is gone, as they say (fitting really, given this blog’s title), replaced by a picture of a magnificent rainbow trout. That’s right - we’re changing identity to all things fishing. I’m still working out whether and how I’ll archive content but expect to see more piscatorial prattle from now on.

Speaking of which, the rats (that’s fisherman speak for young kingfish) are still running in Sydney Harbour. My husband and I watched a marauding kingie only two metres off the shoreline from Kurraba Wharf in Neutral Bay a few days ago. And one sliced through my line while I was reeling in on Sunday. I was after bream so wasn’t geared up for a kingfish. Minimal lead, long shank hook and some frozen squid were the order of the day. Of course, I immediately whacked on a wire trace and live yellowtail (a type of baitfish that kingfish love) but by then he was long gone. The day I land that elusive kingie will be a very proud moment.

The only other time I’ve actually hooked a kingfish was when I was 10. My sister and I had been allowed out by ourselves in the tinny for the very first time. That in itself was very exciting! We anchored off Smedley’s Point in Manly Cove and dropped over our handlines. About halfway down … bang! It was as if a whale had taken off with my line. Of course, I pulled too hard, snapped the line and the fish got away. But the fish then swam around underneath our tiny tinny for what seemed like hours but in reality was probably only 10-15 minutes. I have a vivid memory of peering over the side to come eye to eye with a giant kingfish! It looked giant to my 10-year-old self anyway. In the end we upped anchor rushed home to tell mum and dad, who weren’t half as excited about it all as we were. I suspect dad was a bit upset that we’d hooked this fish when he wasn’t there to help us.

We didn’t have a landing net in the boat, otherwise I’d have given it a red-hot go, but I still lie awake at night and think about whether I’d have been able to wrestle that fish into the boat. A real one-that-got-away moment.

Happy New Year! You know, I really should be the kind of person who scoffs at new year resolutions as being completely vacuous and silly but that’s not the case. I love a good new year resolution! I always make a few, and inevitably fail to keep a couple. The longest standing has been to obtain my boat licence - I have had this on my list for at least the past 15 years!

But this year, I am determined. And in order to give myself a kick up the bum and actually accomplish them, I am posting them here. No doubt in 12 months I’ll look back and chuckle at the complete futility of it all but I can’t take the chance that this action won’t motivate me to new resolution completion heights! So here it goes. Resolutions for 2009:

• * Obtain my boat licence - I have already completed the compulsory safety course, so now all I gotta do is pass the test. Good start huh?
• * Become fit enough to run another half marathon - just to prove the first one wasn’t a fluke. Fitness levels at rock bottom right now so I’m essentially starting from scratch.
• * Read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Then Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Did you know I have never even seen the film?
• * Play field hockey - this is a big one. I haven’t played hockey for 17 years and the game has changed radically in that time. But it’s on the list anyways.
• * Travel to New Zealand to go fly fishing for trout.

That’s probably enough for one year don’t you think? Got any resolutions of your own?

Image from WikipediaNot only is it incredibly alliterative, it’s coming to a venue near you! That’s right, the third annual Fly Fishing Film Festival tour is on its way. Check out venues here. I’m quite excited, not only because it’s a FLY FISHING FILM FESTIVAL (I could say those magic words over and over again), but because Corryong in the list of potential venues (date to be confirmed). I’m in the neighbourhood at the end of the month/beginning of next and there’s nothing I’d like better than to attend! I can’t attend the Sydney show because, well, I’ll be fishing!

…but some catfish are more evil than others and yesterday, the beloved found out just how evil they can be. We’d hired a tinny from Brooklyn to do a spot of fishing on the Hawkesbury River (a last-ditch attempt to make the most of our quickly dissolving holidays). It was a humid but lovely day and a light cloud cover kept the worst of the burning sun at bay. We hadn’t actually caught a great deal – two small bream that we’d put back. I’d had an enormous bite that had broken the line at the swivel and was beating myself up a bit about it…there’s nothing worse than losing a good fish because of the fisherman’s ineptitude with tackle. Overall, a very pleasant morning. I just love messing about in boats and my morning reverie, as I was vaguely attempting to untangle a knot from a line, was broken by the beloved showing off his latest catch – a large striped catfish.

I loathe catfish. The very sight of the slimy, squirming, whiskery golems of the deep fills me with dread. And until yesterday, I had no real reason to be so horrified. But, judging by subsequent events, my reaction would seem to be based on some sort of primordial intuition. Mike, however, did not share my revulsion and was all but ready to grab the thing to dehook and send it back from whence it came.

“Don’t touch it – use a cloth,” I said and began a mad scramble in the bottom of the boat for the cloth I knew I brought along for just such an event. Of course, I couldn’t find it so threw him a Chux instead.

Note to fisherman: Chux don’t protect you from fish spines. Not even Chux of the super duper, extra thick, heavy duty variety. The evil thing flipped about, stabbing the spine on its pectoral fin straight through the flimsy protection and into Mike’s hand – not once, but twice – into his index finger and the webbing of his palm.

Chaos. Did you know catfish are venomous? Slightly less venomous than Stonefish and Scorpionfish, as it turns out, but the emphasis is on slightly. Ok, I am exaggerating. Stonefish will kill you. So the smarmy, venomous fish is flapping about the boat, there’s blood everywhere, the poison is working its way through Mikey’s body and the man with a pain threshold like an elephant (do elephant’s have a high pain threshold?) is writhing around in misery. Mind you, he’s understating things somewhat, even at this point. If it were me, I’d have been screaming. The entire Hawkesbury would have known what had happened. Mike just sat there and said “Ooh, that really hurts. My finger’s gone numb,” and then proceeded to tell me to get the hook out of the fish. Which, naturally, I was reticient to do. When he suggested I get the camera out and take a photo of the fish in case he became unconscious, however, I figured it was dire.

You know, the funniest thing about the whole situation was the pictures I took ended up looking like the rest of our fishing ‘brag’ photos. “Look at the fish I just caught!
It almost killed me!”

Note the bloody drops, tissues and ice brick. Anyway, I cut the thing off and it sunk back to its watery lair, we got the beloved cleaned up and I gave him an ice brick to put on it. He didn’t like the ice but after a while things calmed down. I figured that if catfish were deadly I would have heard about it so, would you believe, we continued fishing! Mike even managed to haul in a very nice flathead!

Once we were on dry land, however, Mike began to feel bad. By now, his hand was a swollen, angry red balloon, hot to touch. He was light headed and sweating and the pain was becoming worse. He suggested, of his own accord, that we go to the doctor and I became progressively more worried. I could tell it was really bad when he asked me to drive, because he never does that. So we made for the Brooklyn Community Centre clinic. As soon as they heard Mike had been stabbed by a catfish they organised somebody to see us almost straight away, prescribed antibiotics and a tetanus injection (which also includes diphtheria and whooping cough these days). But as for pain, it was over-the-counter medication only. I had a feeling that wasn’t going to cut it, but it was all we could do.

So we continued up the road to my aunt’s place (she was a nurse…she’ll know what to do…and she may also have drugs). And it wasn’t until this point that I thought, “I know, I’ll look it up on Google”.

Out of all the technology I own and use, the thing that tickles me the most is being able to access the internet from my mobile phone. Mike teases me mercilessly about it. He calls me his ‘little geek girl’, which isn’t true because, while I like using technology, I’m hardly a geek. Geeks hate Facebook and I quite like it, for example. Ok – I’m addicted to it. But he has had to eat humble pie in any case because thanks to my so-called geekgirliness, I discovered this site, which details treatments for marine stings, among them catfish. And it turns out the correct treatment is not ice, but hot water (ice actually makes it hurt more…and I’d made him use that ice brick and stick his finger in front of the car’s air conditioning vent)! The only consolation was that the doctors didn’t know either. Codeine did nada but hot water is a miracle painkiller – 45 degrees Celsius – for a max of 90 minutes. Today his finger is still swollen and a little sore, but the agony has dissipated – yay!

“That’s the most useful your geekness has ever been, I think.”

Moral of the story: catfish are evil and geek tendencies are to be encouraged.

Santa was very kind to me the Christmas. He bought me a PSP! Woohooin! So now I’m in the land of multimedia goodness.

I’m in sunny Perth at the moment and the weather is gorgeous. And very very hot. Perfect beach weather, although the beloved won’t go to the beach when it’s broiling so we go in the evening - I know there’s lots of grumbling about daylight saving but it really is fabulous! How can you complain about being able to go swimming at 7pm?

And the seafood! We’ve been gorging on prawns and crayfish and my new year’s resolution is a much-needed diet, but in the meantime I plan to enjoy myself!

We’re off fishing for two days from tomozza down south. I had no idea they had trout in WA, but they do. So I’m going to see if I can catch a couple.

And we’ve been hitting the post chrissy sales so I now have four more pairs of shoes than I flew over with! I kid you not.

We’ve been staying in Jollimont, minutes walk from Subiaco which I have decided is my favourite Perth suburb. It’s classy, not too snobby and a bit hip, and the houses are simply devine. All out of my price range, of course (isn’t everything!) but just really well designed. And huge too.

Speaking of houses, you hear a lot of talk about median house prices in Perth and how they’re second only to Sydney’s, but what they don’t tell you is that in many cases that median house price gets you a mini mansion. Like everything in WA, houses are, in general, BIG. I love the open spaces here - and the sky is so blue - the kind of blue I remember, but haven’t seen for a while, what with all the pollution and humidity. It’s good for my soul.

If I didn’t have a job that I loved in Sydney, I’d move here in a second. It’s not all beer and skittles - every place has its pros and cons - but it makes me happy.

Have a wonderful new year and bring on 2007!

Well, we’re back in Sydney after a glorious week away in one of the most beautiful parts of the world - the Snowy Mountains in Australia.
And the fishing was incredible. We both caught massive fish. Check out the catch of my life - a six pound old man trout!

By far the biggest trout I’ve ever caught, and also the fish of which I’m most proud. He went back into the river - and it was the best feeling to watch him swim away.
In fact, it was a week of big fish as Mike also caught some beauties! He’d not been trout fishing before and his second fish was a whopping 3 pound!
More later.