Nets and Fish-hooks.
The natives used hooks and nets as well as the spear in catching fish. William Buckley makes the following statement in his Life and Adventures:—"They used to take me out on calm evenings to teach me how to spear salmon, bream, &c. Their manner is to get some very dry sticks, cut them into lengths of ten or twelve feet, tie several of them together into a kind of faggot, and then light the thickest end; with this torch blazing in one hand and a spear in the other they go into the water, and the fish, seeing the flame, crowd round and are easily taken."[1]
The Jardines saw, at Maramie Creek, "two parties of blacks fishing on the river. . . . . They used reed-spears, pointed with four jagged prongs, and also hooks and lines. Their hooks are made of wood, barbed with bone, and the lines of twisted Currejong bark." The same writers say that "considerable nicety is shown in the making of fishing lines and hooks. The former are made from the fibres of a species of climber, very neatly twisted. The fish-hooks are made of tortoise-shell, or nails procured from wreck-timber. They are without barbs, and our fish-hooks are eagerly sought for in place of them."[2]
In catching eels, Buckley observed that though they spear them frequently, "they generally use lines—the bait being a large earth-worm. Having these worms ready, they get a piece of elastic bark and some long grass, on which they string them; this is tied to a rod, and as the eel, after biting, holds on tenaciously, he is thrown or rather jerked upon the bank."
At the mouths of some of the creeks in the western parts of Victoria, and in the channels through which the lakes overflow, the natives take eels in large quantities. They are so numerous as to embarrass them, and vast quantities are thrown aside and left to decay.
Whether using the spear, the net, or the hook, the native is almost always a more successful sportsman than the European. He knows the habits of the fish, the places where they are to be found, and the food which they prefer; and patient in waiting, quick in seizing an advantage, and with a perfect command of the implement he is using—spear, net, or hook—he is never, or very rarely, disappointed with the results of his labors.
- ↑ Life and Adventures of William Buckley, p. 40.
- ↑ Narrative of the Overland Expedition of the Messrs. Jardine from Rockhampton to Cape York, Northern Queensland. Camp 33. Lat. 16° 27′ 30″ S.; p. 26.
