It’s a frequent sight, and a comforting one, to see our young people fishing off the Bight Bridge at Wingham as you drive across.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It’s comforting because you can see a tradition being upheld – that of country kids outside doing country things.
Jesse Marlin is one of the teenagers who frequents the bridge regularly, and on Monday, January 28 he caught a “personal best” – a 78.5 centimetre flathead.
He was fishing with his neighbour and friend, Ben Smith. They’d tried under the bridge for half an hour, with no results. So they moved up onto the bridge.
“He didn’t catch anything. He said I wouldn’t have caught anything off the top there! But second cast, I got the flathead on,” Jesse explained.
“I was surprised how big it was when I got it up to the top of the water. Ben didn’t think I had anything on, he thought I had a snag. I pulled it up to the top (of the water) and he was like, ‘yup, I’ll go down there now’.
“We had these fish grips that go into the mouth and grab the fish to hold it. Lucky we had that or I don’t think we would have been able to get it up.
“If felt pretty good!” Jesse says.
Jesse is a responsible and ethical fisherman. While the limit for flathead is one over 70cm, according to the NSW Department of Primary Industries, Jesse elected to release the fish back into the river.
“It was too big. I didn’t want to keep it because it was a big breeder. I didn’t want to kill something that breeds a lot,” Jesse says.
The 15-year-old from Tinonee has been fishing for seven years, since he moved from WA to Tinonee.
He fishes nearly every weekend from the Bight Bridge, or under the bridge, and uses ‘soft plastics’ – little rubber lures, to catch the fish.
“You can catch perch there, they’re freshwater fish but they come up to breed there. You normally catch flathead and bream,” Jesse says.
He says the best time to fish on the river is at medium to high tide.
“But they’ve been catching a lot at low tide lately,” he says.
Jesse also fishes at Tinonee Wharf and the Riverside Reserve in Tinonee, but results are not usually as good at those locations.
“You don’t catch us much as in Wingham. You catch a couple of bream there. I’ve caught a couple of stingrays there before,” he says.
Julia Driscoll
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
