Desert Fishing Lessons
Desert Fishing Lessons – I’m a water person, a river person, a fish person. I spend an inordinate amount of my time grubbing around in the bottom of muddy waterholes and rivers, thinking about the why and how of fish that live in particular areas. It wasn’t planned, it just happened.
I’ve always been fascinated by how living things get by on the planet, but this interest has manifested itself in the mysterious world of things living underwater. And this fascination has narrowed further over the years, and now focuses on fishy things within the driest bits of the driest inhabited planet on Earth. Fish and deserts are unusual bedfellows, but that’s the
way it is.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was born into the east coast middle-class culture that valued hard work and success. Happily, this east coast culture also included the coast itself, which was wild and free, and allowed us youngsters to explore it and, in my case at least, begin a long and fishy journey that continues to lure me to remote parts of Australia.
No matter where I go, I still find myself peering into the water and wondering what might be going on.
I remember on Boxing Day 1985, schoolmates Marty, Alan and I drove up to Bateau Bay on the New South Wales central coast. We unloaded the car, pulled on backpacks, picked up bundles of fishing rods and then traipsed around to the rocks at the southern side of the smaller beach.