Fishing with the Family Back in Australia, I caught 2 Black Jews.

Black Jewfish (Protonibea diacanthus) were once found all through South East Asia as far west as India and the Arabian Gulf and as far north as Japan, but these days have become far more scarce, and if you've ever eaten this fish... You'll know why. Not only are they a delicious eating fish, They also put up a great fight.

In Australia Big Black Jews are a prize catch, the 2 I caught were barely legal (75cm in QLD). Black jew grow to around 45 kg and 1.5 metres long, and have a rapid growth rate, they reach 60 cm in around 2 years and reach 80-90 cm after about 4 years.

Our little 15ft half cabin boat back in Australia
We loved fishing back in Australia, we would head out at least once a fortnight sometimes in the boat, other times we would drive for a few hours and spend a night or 2 shore fishing. Never planned, always spur of the moment and often late at night when I wouldn't have to work.


My wife (@mumma-monza) shore fishing on while on holiday in 1770 in Queensland.

All 5 of our kids loved fishing, when we would go away for a few nights we would often set up camp. Put the kids in a tent and the wife and I would either sleep in the back of the Ute(truck) or by the fire under the stars "The old million star hotel"

That's one of the things I love about my wife, she's pretty adventurous. Not afraid to take a shit in the woods.

To left is my daughter Layla, at the time she was around 2, several times a week after I finished work I would drive down the road with the kids and check our crab pots, bring home the crabs and Re-bait the pots. We would get several decent sized mud crab every week.

My little secret was to use a can of cat food in each pot, stab a few holes In the can and your all set. The smell lures them in, and once inside, the bait will not be eaten and continue to lure more crabs.

Even before they could walk, we were getting them used to the water

Our lack of planning always makes for interesting adventures.

On this trip out the boat broke down and we were stuck out on the boat over night, my mate who had already called in sick from work to come fishing, had to call his work the next morning... Almost as if it were a movie, once his boss answered the phone dolphins were beside our boat prompting my kids to starts screaming "look at the dolphins dad". I think when he returned to work the following day with his 2 day stuck on the ocean sun tan... He would have put 1 and 2 together.

We moved out of this house only weeks before the Brisbane floods a few years back, the ground floor was flooded up to one foot from the ceiling apparently.

I wondered why our rent was going up... I wasn't aware it was about to become riverfront property or we might have stayed 😉

I could have dropped a line from the Lounge room window If we were still living there.

I say that in jest the floods were terrible, we did pitch in with relief efforts filling sandbags during the floods(hundreds of people showed up at the council depot with our utes and shovels and did what we could, Proud time to be a Queenslander) We also did alot of clean up and construction in the affected areas for months afterwards.