The Stingray

At the back of our minds there lurks a shadow. As the gentle easterly breeze picks up, and our hair starts to wave around in it's new-found strength, the tension rises in our small camp. Off the end of the jetty, Max whips back his rod and throws his recently-caught trumpeter out with the breeze, willing it on past the flickering jetty lights at Point Walter and out into the dark abyss.

This story begins back in the final reaches of 2009, December, out the back of the E-sheds at the mouth of the Swan River. After a reasonable night of fishing, we begin to pack-it-in, when this guy, a fishing expert according to himself, hooks up. Earlier in the night, we saw this guy walking towards us with his huge beach rod, as long as a small car. We laughed at him, sarcastically asking him what kind of fish he is trying to get with that. So ensues a conversation which none of us want to get involved in - this guy tells us all his wonderfull stories about how his mate caught a starfish one time, and he started giving us fishing tips as if we had not lived on a tropical island surrounded by ocean all our lives. And he told of how, once, he caught a stingray.

So, we were about to head for home when this guy's rod starts bending wildly. But his rod tip doesn't flicker like when a fish is fighting for it's life is on the other end - it just bends, like a dead weight. Like a snag. The guy starts walking from side to side, pulling his rod along with him, trying to prove that he had another stingray on. Nobody believed him, and after he lost his second "stingray" in the space of 5 minutes, we left, laughing at him and his obscene stories all the way home.

The following fishing trip, Vince and I encounter a woman on the jetty at Point Walter. She has a massive rod, with little bells on the end - like the ones you find on a cats collar. Amused by the whole set up, we ask what kinds of fish she is after with that thing, what is she aiming to catch? "Anything", she replies. "I've caught stingray before". Me and Vince can't contain ourselves, it's just too funny. First, the crazy guy at the E-sheds, and now this crazy lady at Point Walter. Stingrays, yeah right!

But as we continue to fish the warm summer nights, we hear more and more stories of this elusive stingray. One night a guy walks down to the jetty with a bow and arrow. "What are you gunna catch with that, mate?"
"Stingray".
Another night, a woman walks over to inquire about our fish.
"Oh yeah, I got a couple of 40cm Tailor down at Rockingham the other night"
"What about Stingray?"
"Yeah, got some of 'em too"
The shadow starts to take shape in the back of our minds.

In time, Max starts bringing down his big rod and a couple of hefty gang-hooks. "what are you gunna get with that Max?", I cheekily remark.
"Stingray!" he says, now just the generic answer that question or any similar. But by the end of the night, we aren't laughing. Max's rod buzzes, and bends like the harbour bridge. The whole trumpeter on the end had just been smashed. After a few tense moments, he loses the fish. We all look at each other. The shadow that had been lurking ever since the crazy guy had talked about it at the E-sheds, had now suddenly had sprung out of the dark and become a certain reality.

Thus brings this story to the present. Max typically calls and swings by after work. We pop into the tackle store on Canning Highway, get our packets of white and blue bait and gang hooks and a couple of packs of glow sticks to go after some little tailor down in the river. But we also buy some bigger hooks, some thicker line and a big steel leader. We head across the road and get a hefty McDonalds dinner, and we fill the esky with ice and some Jack Daniels and Coke, and we rug up for a long night on the end of the jetty, braving the howling easterly coming down through the valley. As the night deepens, and the bigger tailor start to shy away, Max sets up his big hooks and baits up a whole fish. The shadow, still in the back of our minds, has now taken on its full form. An inquisitive man comes up to Max and I, and asks what we are trying to get with that kind of gear. Max and I look at each other, we aren't laughing anymore. "Stingray"