19 “Heaps of Pike”

“Heaps of Pike!!” That’s what Logan told the hopeful fishermen who were walking towards him on the pier. He had seen several being caught at the far end of the pier, so as he walked with me on the way back to his car, he passed the good news on to everyone he met. He was right. There was definitely plenty of action early this morning and he had probably been the first one to notice it. He and Jules usually start fishing early, well before most of us arrive.

Yellowtail pike are known by a number of different names, including Striped Sea Pike, Striped Barracuda and Snook. I’ve read that they’re actually part of the barracuda family. They don’t grow very big here in the Bay, usually to around 30cm. Being a very oily fish, they are good for smoking and they are also used by the fishermen here for bait, to catch snapper and other large fish.

I still remember fishing for pike as a boy, 80 years or so ago.  Together with my young friends, I spent many hours at the edge of a small stream which connected to a big river, the Rhine (“Oude Rijn”), which ran parallel to the main street of our village. Our home was so close to the Rhine that many of my early memories are about this interesting and busy river. I still have a clear picture in my mind of lots of ships, including “coasters” (smaller sea-going ships) and “Rijnaken” (large river ships), moving past us, travelling to the nearby seaports or, away from the coast, to other cities in Holland or to Belgium, Germany or other European countries.

In contrast to all the activity on the Rhine, the small stream where we, as young boys, fished was in a quiet part of our village, very close to our home. Our fishing rods were very rudimentary, basically just sticks with small fishing lines tied to them. I remember that we attached little hooks, which we had to try to fix, with great difficulty, to our lines, and a “dobber”, which was a small, coloured float. I think we children only used two kinds of bait, worms which we dug up ourselves, or old bread, made moist and rolled into tiny balls. 

Our aim was to catch whatever was there – we were not very sophisticated! I remember that this included “snoek” (pike) and “baars” (perch) and a few other common river fish, but I don’t think that I ever caught much and certainly nothing big enough to take home. For us, fishing was always a relaxing way of spending some catch-up time with our friends, much the same as it is for the fishing people on the Shorncliffe Pier today.

I understand that the 30cm Australian pikes found in Moreton Bay are quite different from the Dutch fish which live in the myriad of small rivers and polder canals, as well as in the lakes and big rivers there. In recent times, these Dutch fish have been found to grow to over a metre in length. This is attributed by some to the improvements in the quality of the water. I’ve also read that in Holland you can’t use live bait anymore to catch pikes and that at certain times of the year you can’t fish for them with lures (artificial bait) either. Fortunately for our “pier-dwellers”, there are no such restrictions for pike here in Queensland, so when they’re as plentiful as they were today, many fishermen, and women, will turn up and try their luck.

Local John, a well-known regular, was one of those fishing today. He can be found here almost every day, fishing or talking, somewhere on or close to the pier. He wears thongs, even when the weather gets cold and, most importantly, he knows all that there is to know about the sea life around the pier in Moreton Bay. 

It was almost as busy today with the pike as when the mullet was running recently. Everyone was present then as well. Logan and Jules, Chris, Dick, Sam and Zoe and many others. It was pretty exciting for all of us that day, because the mullets were big and they were everywhere. Local John actually caught one right when I was standing there, and I watched him landing it, a nice stocky fish.

It just goes to show. Never a dull day on the pier!

O.P.

P.S. Next Sunday we’ll talk about “poor man’s caviar” and travel to Fiji and exotic Wakaya island.