Proof that you can catch lobsters in a full moon

KEN Barry, a member of the Narrowgut Crew, was a fisherman until 1949 when he branched out into lobstering.

He purchased Clatterbang, so that he could work 40-45 hand-woven lobster pots around the reefs and rocky headlands from Fingal south to Rocky Point.

Clatterbang was the first motorised boat in Fingal Bay and it was built by a fisherman from Stockton named Sheppard.

It was originally driven along by 5hp Clay motor, which ran on petrol, and later a 7hp air-cooled Lister diesel engine.

The peace which had existed in Fingal forever had come to an end when Clatterbang was launched. No one in Fingal Bay had ever heard such a racket.

“It was very noisy,” admitted Ken, “hence the name.”

“Lobsters could be caught right around the island from 20 yards from the shore. This was 1955. They said you won’t catch any lobsters tonight – calm sea, full moon, not a breath of wind – in crystal-clear water.

“I got 13 dozen the night before the full moon, 16 dozen and 8 on the night of the full moon, and 14 dozen the night after the full moon.

“42 dozen in 3 nights.

“You won’t catch lobsters in a full moon. Well that buggered that theory up good and proper.

“I worked it out for that year 1955 I was earning £35 to £40 a week getting 1/11d (20c) a pound.

“On today’s prices for lobsters, I would be earning around $60,000-$70,000 a week!”.

Ken remembered that the best catch for one day was 16 dozen lobsters and once having 28 lobsters in one pot.

“The best year ever for lobsters was 1955,” he recalled.

“We were being paid 1/11d per pound. No one would go to 2/-.

“I was catching up to 70 dozen lobsters a week out of 40 pots.

“We would gather tea tree sticks from the Fingal bush and weave them into lobster pots.

“Only certain sticks could be used and they could be found not far from a tall tree with an osprey’s nest high in the branches.

“That was over 60 years ago. The osprey’s nest is still there and, the last time I visited, not long ago, there was a bird on the nest.”

There is not much happens around Fingal without the local fishermen knowing all about it. If they don’t know, they make it their business to find out.

A baffling case concerned a significant amount of money that went missing from the Nelson Bay Post Office.

The fishermen’s detective work, following the theft, led them to believe that they uncovered the mystery and identified the guilty party.

The Case of the Buried Treasure – as told by Ken Barry

“Years later there was a bloke on the island working on the automation of the lighthouse in the early 1970s who rented a place off Fingal Bay resident fisherman Clarrie Clarke.

“We found out that $108,000.00 went missing from the Nelson Bay Post Office.

“The mail truck was taking the money back down to Newcastle when the driver stopped at Stewarts and Lloyds Bowling Club to drop off a set of bowls. When he came back out, the money was gone.

“A little private investigation by a couple of fishermen discovered that someone had organised to send a set of bowls from Nelson Bay Bowling Club into the Newcastle club in the mail truck.

“The fishermen, who played bowls themselves, knew the owner and the exact set of bowls, as they had a diamond inset to indicate the bias.

“The set of bowls that were dropped off at Stewart and Lloyds had a diamond inset!

“The bloke renting Clarrie’s house and working on the island played bowls at the Nelson Bay Club and owned a set of bowls with –  a diamond inset!

“The crime was never solved.

“After the suspect died his wife arrived in Fingal with his ashes and asked if we could organise a trip over to the island to distribute them.

“On the day she arrived we couldn’t land on the island as the sea was too rough, so the ashes were taken out to sea in Clatterbang and tossed into Fingal Bay where we could see the lighthouse.

“A few times after that his wife arrived in Fingal and asked to be taken across to the lighthouse.

“Again, it was too rough, so she walked around the beach and sat on the end of the Spit and stared at the island across the water.

“The wife came back for about three years running.

“We reckon that there is $108,000.00 somewhere buried around the lighthouse but we don’t know where to look.”

By John ‘Stinker” CLARKE

Part 4: See earlier editions of NOTA for Parts 1, 2 and 3.