I was about four years old when my Mother took me to the local park and I saw a fish in water for the first time in my life. From that moment I became an aspiring angler and I wanted nothing more than to put that fish on the bank. It wasn’t long before I was fishing for the stickle backs, one of which I had seen, by virtue of a small net on the end of a length of bamboo but by buying it for me, my mother cannot have dreamt of what she was launching onto the piscatorial world.
It wasn’t long before the sticklebacks were too small to excite me, I wanted bigger fish and so I progressed to the breakwater not far from home where I fished for baby coalfish or Pollack – I have never been able to be sure of which. Those too were soon too small and I wanted bigger fish and so it has been all of my fishing life. I was never satisfied with the fish I was catching, I always wanted to progress. I chased double figure carp, pike and bream. I wanted big chub and barbel and then having seen Irish fishing reports, I began to hanker after a triple figure fish in the way of large skate. I had them to 156lbs and a few years later I moved to Australia.
I soon found that catching triple figure fish was hardly a great achievement, there are plenty of them here in the way of rays and sharks and, indeed, I have even had sailfish to over one hundred pounds. My hunger for ever bigger fish continued to develop and a thousand pounder became my next target and some years ago I achieved that figure with a tiger shark that was estimated at 1200lbs. It was a bit too big for my Little Samson scales so we never bothered to lift it out of the water – besides which, it seemed to be a bit angry at having been subjected to the indignities of being caught and those of us in the boat wanted to stay well away from the teeth in the rather large mouth that tiger had.
Since that tiger shark, my desire to catch ever bigger fish has decreased but I am still interested in big fish and when I was in Exmouth in Western Australia recently I decided to go out for a day’s snorkelling with the whale sharks that frequent the waters in that area. Next door to the pub in which I would have an evening beer is The Exmouth Diving Centre which runs whale shark outings so I called in there and booked myself a day out with them. We left their shop at 7:00am the next morning and I was introduced to the two photographers Katia and Alan who would record our day’s experiences for us.
The whale shark is the biggest fish of all but they are only plankton eaters and like other plankton eaters they do grow big. I don’t know just how big they do grow, but I do know that 30 feet in length is not an unusual size for them. There were seven of us booked for the outing that day and we were all full of anticipation as we were taken aboard the tender for the much larger boat that was to be our search vessel. On our arrival at it, I was very grateful for the help I received from the crew in transferring myself to the bigger boat. I am in my mid-seventies and things like that are no longer the simple exercises they used to be.
The start of our search was a snorkelling session just to get us familiar with the gear provided for the main part of the day, but being as I had taken my own fins and face mask, I was instantly at home in the water and spent my time looking for the fish I know frequent coral reefs. Once finished at that, we moved to where the whale sharks had been spotted by the pilots of ultra light aircraft and all of us were quick to get into the water. I knew that there was a whale shark close by and was frantically scanning in an attempt to find it. However, it found me first and appeared beside me. It was so close I was astonished, in fact it was much closer to me than the law allows us to approach the fish. I stopped using my fins and tried to move away from it simply by arm strokes but it seemed to be almost magnetic.
Shortly afterwards, it seemed to become a bit nervous of us all around it and it slowly began to go deeper to get away from us. Fortunately there were several of the fish in the area and we had a number of dives with them the biggest of which was about 33 feet in length.
Eventually the day was over and our time with the sharks, the crew of the boat and the excellent lunch which included Champagne were filed away as memories. I have dived in that area both on snorkelling and SCUBA sessions on many occasions in the past but I had never before been fortunate enough to see a whale shark. I don’t suppose I will ever do it again and I have to say that without the Exmouth Diving Centre crew I could have never have managed it. I am still fine in the water but I found it impossible to get back into the boat on my own and while years ago a mile swim back to shore would not have been a problem I think it would be a bit too far for me today. The photographers, Katia and Alan, worked hard at getting photographs of all of us with the sharks so that we all have pictures of what we saw to share with our friends and relatives.
It really was a wonderful day and I would thoroughly recommend Exmouth Diving Centre to anyone who might find themselves in that part of the world. Their shop is easy to find, it is next door to the Pot Shot pub.
It wasn’t long before the sticklebacks were too small to excite me, I wanted bigger fish and so I progressed to the breakwater not far from home where I fished for baby coalfish or Pollack – I have never been able to be sure of which. Those too were soon too small and I wanted bigger fish and so it has been all of my fishing life. I was never satisfied with the fish I was catching, I always wanted to progress. I chased double figure carp, pike and bream. I wanted big chub and barbel and then having seen Irish fishing reports, I began to hanker after a triple figure fish in the way of large skate. I had them to 156lbs and a few years later I moved to Australia.
I soon found that catching triple figure fish was hardly a great achievement, there are plenty of them here in the way of rays and sharks and, indeed, I have even had sailfish to over one hundred pounds. My hunger for ever bigger fish continued to develop and a thousand pounder became my next target and some years ago I achieved that figure with a tiger shark that was estimated at 1200lbs. It was a bit too big for my Little Samson scales so we never bothered to lift it out of the water – besides which, it seemed to be a bit angry at having been subjected to the indignities of being caught and those of us in the boat wanted to stay well away from the teeth in the rather large mouth that tiger had.
Since that tiger shark, my desire to catch ever bigger fish has decreased but I am still interested in big fish and when I was in Exmouth in Western Australia recently I decided to go out for a day’s snorkelling with the whale sharks that frequent the waters in that area. Next door to the pub in which I would have an evening beer is The Exmouth Diving Centre which runs whale shark outings so I called in there and booked myself a day out with them. We left their shop at 7:00am the next morning and I was introduced to the two photographers Katia and Alan who would record our day’s experiences for us.
The whale shark is the biggest fish of all but they are only plankton eaters and like other plankton eaters they do grow big. I don’t know just how big they do grow, but I do know that 30 feet in length is not an unusual size for them. There were seven of us booked for the outing that day and we were all full of anticipation as we were taken aboard the tender for the much larger boat that was to be our search vessel. On our arrival at it, I was very grateful for the help I received from the crew in transferring myself to the bigger boat. I am in my mid-seventies and things like that are no longer the simple exercises they used to be.
The start of our search was a snorkelling session just to get us familiar with the gear provided for the main part of the day, but being as I had taken my own fins and face mask, I was instantly at home in the water and spent my time looking for the fish I know frequent coral reefs. Once finished at that, we moved to where the whale sharks had been spotted by the pilots of ultra light aircraft and all of us were quick to get into the water. I knew that there was a whale shark close by and was frantically scanning in an attempt to find it. However, it found me first and appeared beside me. It was so close I was astonished, in fact it was much closer to me than the law allows us to approach the fish. I stopped using my fins and tried to move away from it simply by arm strokes but it seemed to be almost magnetic.
Shortly afterwards, it seemed to become a bit nervous of us all around it and it slowly began to go deeper to get away from us. Fortunately there were several of the fish in the area and we had a number of dives with them the biggest of which was about 33 feet in length.
Eventually the day was over and our time with the sharks, the crew of the boat and the excellent lunch which included Champagne were filed away as memories. I have dived in that area both on snorkelling and SCUBA sessions on many occasions in the past but I had never before been fortunate enough to see a whale shark. I don’t suppose I will ever do it again and I have to say that without the Exmouth Diving Centre crew I could have never have managed it. I am still fine in the water but I found it impossible to get back into the boat on my own and while years ago a mile swim back to shore would not have been a problem I think it would be a bit too far for me today. The photographers, Katia and Alan, worked hard at getting photographs of all of us with the sharks so that we all have pictures of what we saw to share with our friends and relatives.
It really was a wonderful day and I would thoroughly recommend Exmouth Diving Centre to anyone who might find themselves in that part of the world. Their shop is easy to find, it is next door to the Pot Shot pub.
