Growing Up in a Fishing Family by Leo Massey (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR WRITER: Rie Natalenko
SYNOPSIS: To Leo, growing up in a fishing family was to have a magic childhood, and the things he learnt have stayed with him all through his life, even though he was one of the first boys in a number of generations not to take up professional fishing.
SCRIPT: I had a magic childhood. I had the farm and the Lake.

Some days wed leave home with some bread and butter, pepper and salt, box or matches, our fishing lines and up the creek wed go. Swimming, catching fish. Wed catch our dinner. I learnt how to cook on an open fire. While we were swimming we used to have mud fights and dive and see if we could swim right across the Creek under water. We also had horses on the farm to play with and wed go and ride the horses in the Lake. Stand old Jenny, wed stand old Jenny out in the bay and use her as a diving board.

Mum could yodel and I could hear her up to three to four kilometres away. And when mum yodeled it was time to come home in a hurry or we got into trouble. But we had to come home to do our chores too. We always had plenty of chores to do: pull the nets off the boats to get them dry. Then it was one of the chores actually to go shooting and once a month the family would eat wild duck. Id wander all the way to Dapto and shoot rabbits, which were pests. Id trap rabbits and sell skins to Akubra, maybe 200 in a weekend. I could skin a rabbit in less than a minute.

I got my fishing license at 14. I was fishing from the age of 15 to 21. Then one day, after three days on the Lake without sleep I anchored the boats in the Creek so that the water rats couldnt get to them and it was pouring rain. I sat on the bank and fell asleep. I slept for 19 hours straight. They left me there, asleep. I woke up in the rain and thought, theres got to be a better way than this. So I decided to do carpentry.

I was one of the first boys in 4 or 5 generations to leave the fishing industry. When I left the fishing industry, my father, well, he didnt talk much for a long time. But then he realised that, when he saw my skills at repairing boats, and he realised Id made the right choice.

And the skills I learnt from fishing, which became a sport later, the skills I learnt where to look for fish, how to handle a boat and how to catch fish, what time of the year and no Ive fished right around this country. Ive had a wonderful life actually.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• commercial fishing
• childhood

[northernpike56]

Thx for sharing :-)