Joe is a legend, but we’ll get to that a bit later…
It all started with walking around the filleting table in a diaper picking around in Dad’s left over fish frames from the great day he just had with Mum, my older brother or mates. It had me intrigued and I couldn’t wait to be apart if it.
After growing a small bit I was in the boat and was able to fend for myself, tying my own leaders, collect my own yabbies and driving the boat for Dad while he cast the net for livies. This wasn’t something that happen occasionally, this happen every single weekend – EVERY. Our family was in the local fishing club which gave Dad a pretty good reason to get the boat wet. A fond memory I have was always harassing my Dad to buy me a new lure at the service station every time we fuelled the boat up, he didn’t always crack but occasionally id get to pick one. I remember this lure id brought and I thought it was an absolute cracker, this thing was going to catch the biggest of big, well that morning I was way too eager to try out my new lure so I let Dad collect the bait on his own (terrible son) And I tied her on and cast it about, after a couple of casts I hooked myself what I thought was a solid flathead all of about 40cm but! It was on a lure! I couldn’t wait for Dad to come back to show him what I got us for dinner! And this is where the little ‘Lure’ fishing seed was planted..….
After moving from Ayr to Townsville when I was 11 the fishing changed a little, we had moved to a congested city, Dad and Mum’s job’s meant less time for fishing. But not for me, I used to jump on my push bike and ride to the local ponds to catch Tilapia on bread under a float and getting super excited with every single fish we brought in, big or small we had a blast! This took up a lot of my weekends. Once I was in high school I used to hit the local weirs, this meant taking my fishing rods to my mate’s house so we could spend an extra half an hour down the weir fishing for the big swamp donkey Barramundi on live Barred Grunter and Jerk Baits. This in itself was a task, being fresh water I knew you were not allowed the use of any cast nets so I had to pack two rods, one for catching the bait with bread and hook, to then bait up an outfit for the Barramundi. All this was adaptation, no one taught us to do so, we just thought about it and gave it a go and it worked. If all that wasn’t hard enough, we had to do all this in the space of 3pm from school to 6:30pm riding up the driveway thirty minutes away. I’ve always been keen!
After High School, I become an Apprentice Composite Technician (Fibreglasser) for a local Boat Builder, we built four Power Catamarans up to Fifty Six foot. I figured building boats might mean I could bring a rod on a potential Ocean Trial. After I served my time as an apprentice I was employed at my Current workplace where I have happily been, now into my 9th Year. I am currently a North Queensland Account Manager of a leading Composites Supplier looking after customers from Rockhampton all the way north to Cairns which gives me the chance to pack my rods and fish before and after hours along the highway catching anything from Jp’s and Sooties to Jacks and Tarpon. In 2015 I took on the task to build myself the boat I’ve always wanted, something that suits the estuaries I haunt and maybe on a good day fly out to the bays and islands. I had built myself a five metre Skiff style boat out of a 1967 4.5 metre Swift Craft runabout.
For the past 4 years I have gone completely away from bait and have chosen to use lure only, the simple explanation why is that I was tired of waiting for something to happen, I lived for making something happen and I felt as if I myself earned that fish a little more. My favourite style of fishing is Jigging for Barra in season and top water Jacks with Reef trips thrown in when the weathers good. Every weekend trips involves a cooked boat feed of Bacon, eggs, hash browns and cheese with tomato sauce. This is my secret weapon for long days in the boat, it’s a time to reflect and regather, as they say, “there’s no substitute for time on the water”. All this happens in good company, either my old man and myself, the family or my good mates and this is the exact reason I love doing what I do.
Currently I have two beautiful kids and a stunning wife who all enjoy a good day out in the boat. I’ve been taking my five year old legend of a son Tyler in the boat for the past two years. Tyler can now stand beside me on the deck and cast weedless rigged placcy’s around the creeks, with that being said I believe my dad’s a legend for taking me in the boat all my life and my sons a legend for loving to fish, so that brings me back to the start…
I too must be a Legend haha.