STINKER’S STORIES: Fingal Bay character Bill Croft

DURING the past 50-odd years I have spent in Fingal Bay, I have met numerous characters, mainly fishermen from a bygone time.

They were all storytellers. None were better than Bill Croft, who worked for the Water Board and fished illegally in Grahamstown Dam, which he told me was full of monster mullet, bass and giant eels.

Let me share some of Bill’s more memorable yarns.

Bill Croft, who has moved on to the big fishing boat in the sky, had a wicked sense of humour. An adventurer, storyteller, spearfisherman, and hunter, he was the best recreational fisherman I’d ever met.

You may well ask how I have come to this conclusion after meeting so many cracker fishos over a lifetime.

Over the many years that I had known him he had caught quality fish of all species. He was not a specialist on any one species, although he focused the majority of his attention on mulloway, snapper and dusky flathead, whiting, bream, luderick and drummer.

When he targeted a particular fish, that’s what he caught. If he felt that there was a more efficient method of catching that fish, then he invented the tackle to do so.

Bill continually experimented; even with his immense experience, he was always keen to learn and try something new. Once a fisherman who prided himself on having the ability to catch heaps of big fish, he had for many years been very content to simply take home a few for the pan.

On one occasion, during my school-teaching days, I received a message from the school secretary informing me that Crofty would pick me up after school in the car park and that we were going fishing for bass.

The bell went and there was Bill, geared up and ready to roll.

“You want to catch bass, well I’ll show you a few secrets. Jump in,” he said.

We turned right at Raymond Terrace and from there on I was completely lost. If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn’t tell you how to find this secret spot.

What I can remember is that we turned up a bush track, then onto a dirt road before stopping in front of a sign that read “Trespassers will be Prosecuted”.

Well, we got out of the car and I was told to crawl under a barbed wire fence beside the sign.

Carrying a couple of rods and a small box of lures, Bill was getting increasingly excited as we came to another sign attached to a wire and steel enclosure resembling a big animal cage.

“ KEEP OUT! Anyone found within this enclosure will be fined $500.”

I followed Bill as he dropped to his knees and crawled through a hole in the wire netting.

“Come on, not far now,” he said.

Continually looking over my shoulder and hearing the law closing in, I followed Bill’s every instruction.

Finally, we reached a huge hole in the ground with a ladder dropping down into the darkness. Around the ladder and the hole was yet another wire barricade and a sign. “Danger. Enter at your own risk.”

Obviously we weren’t welcome.

Down we went, on our bellies this time.

“Here we are,” gasped Bill, covered in burrs and dust.

The ladder went straight down onto a small cross bridge that straddled nothing more than a drain. Down we went, 60 rungs, onto the bridge.

Everything was news to me. On one side of the bridge, the drain meandered through reeds and steep cliffs. The other side was a real mystery as the narrow waterway disappeared into what appeared to be a man-made tunnel drilled into a cliff face.

“Shhh,” whispered Bill. “Can you hear them?”

“Can I hear what?” I quizzed, still thinking I might end up doing time.

“Bass, in the tunnel, smashing the surface of the water, feeding on insects. Listen.”

I listened. I could hear the noise echoing through the tunnel, which sounded like someone dropping rocks into the water.

“Bass!” Bill was getting increasingly excited.

To reach the fish in the tunnel it was necessary to cast the lure in an under-arm swing, similar to a chip shot in golf. When my lure hit the water, after bouncing off the roof of the tunnel, the action was immediate as big fish blasted the lure and headed deeper into the blackness. “Unbelievable,” I muttered to myself as I battled something that I couldn’t see, peeling line.

Half an hour passed and I’d landed a couple of beautiful fish.  It was only then that I noticed that Bill wasn’t fishing.

From his small bag he took out a piece of Coolite, a bit larger than a matchbox. On it was painted a pair of eyes and a couple of feathers, poked in the nose, served as antennas. A swivel on the beak allowed Bill to tie his line.

He tossed odd-looking ‘lure’ among the reeds and retrieved it in a jerking fashion, flopping along the surface. Crunch! Something mean attempted to swallow the lot. Again and again the ungainly piece of Coolite was hammered.

“Why can’t you catch it, Bill?” I queried.

“No hooks, mate,” Bill smiled. “You don’t need to catch fish to enjoy fishing.”

I sat and watched a master at work.

“Where did you get the lure?” I asked.

“I carved it with a pocket knife out of a broken Esky. The eyes with a fluro texta and the feathers from a chook’s bum,” he replied.

We never returned.

STINKER’S STORIES
By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE