DO ANYTHING WRONG AND WE'LL PING YA!

Every February, Port Stevens plays host to a big game-fishing competition, where humans seek glory hunting and catching marlin, shark, tuna and other strong, swift fighters of the sea. 

Unwittingly we found ourselves at the centre of it when we anchored near the Nelson Bay Marina on the day before the official start.  We went into town to buy fish (shark?) and chips for dinner.  At first glance, it looked as if we had dropped into a massive education conference, with which Dean and I are sadly familiar. Marquees and projection screens had been erected, delegate satchels and gifts were lined up, refreshment tents were being stocked, trade booths were being prepared.  Over 1000 delegates were expected, plus sundry scientists, organisers, sponsors and on-lookers like us.  

There were some immediate and obvious differences between my kind of conference and this one.  First the delegates were men.  I don’t just mean ‘predominantly men’. I am used to that. I mean that women were really, really not evident.  Further, the men were unrepresentative of the publishers and academics I mingle with.  Game-fisherpersons appeared at first glance to be taller, heavier in the beer belly, more tattooed, more ear-ringed and with more booming voices than I am used to.  Thongs, shorts, tee shirts and a stubby holder were de rigeur, each with sketches of big fish or slogans like ‘Get Reel’.  (I am over-generalising here: Dean and I know only one of the delegates personally: Kelvin Rabbits from Cammeray Marina.  He happens to be trim, healthy, charming, clean-shaven and well-dressed, but we didn’t see him on the first night.)

As with any conference, specialised vocabulary was impenetrable to outsiders. What is a ‘stripey’ anyway? In some groups, language was also rich with anglo-saxon words (many starting with ‘f’) with one or more required in each sentence as an adjective or adverb.

The official speakers at the main briefing were all equipped with power point presentations and microphones needed for clear communication with 1000 delegates, and the usual hapless techies were running around trying to get the audio-visual equipment to work. Unlike an education conference however, where an audience will sit politely for hours bored to tears and not move a muscle even when the utmost drivel is being presented, this audience was brutal.  Speakers got about 30 seconds to prove that had something to say. If they failed, the delegates returned to the beer, sausages and fishing anecdotes.  A scientist from one of the commonwealth bureaucracies mentioned ‘policy’ and ‘we are here to help…’ in his first paragraph.  Nothing more was heard over the din.  The female scientist was smarter.  She spoke for about 30 seconds in toto, said that she and her team loved fishing tournaments and needed their help in getting fish samples to make sure that fish continued to exist.  She got a good hearing. 

At one point the  MC started to go through the long list of prohibited actions for which competitors would be docked points, including dumping fish or waste over-board, creating wash in no-wash zones, speeding, not keeping the skeds, tampering with sponsors’ signage, putting their numbers up-side down and so on.  As the crowd got more restive and his power point display got more out of sync, he just gave up, paused a second and said.  “Anyway, in summary… you do anything wrong, we’ll ping ya.  Check ya papers for what not to do.”  The delegates loved it: short, to the point, plain speaking. 

But all this was the lead-up, the fore-play. The real thing was the men in their boats going out to do battle. One thousand men plus maybe 100 (?) women. Two hundred boats: big boat, small boats, shiny boats and scuffed boats, rich boats and poor boats, official boats and spectator boats.  Every delegate belonged to one. Each had been carefully prepared.  Each was decked out for serious battle.  It was quite moving to watch the boats proudly motor past in single file, especially the little ones, in the commencement fly-by.

And just in case you started out with the same apprehensions as I about the sport, please note: most of the captured fish are tagged and thrown back.  Scientists get terrific cooperation with the participants in gathering information about fish behaviour. And many of the big, bloodied fish that were bought back and hung ignominiously from a hook for the photo op and weigh-in were donated to the Taree Bible College or other charities for feeding the community. The Greens (and me) still don’t like it, but it could be worse.  Go Australia.