Cray Fishing in Western Australia

Cray Fishing
Lancelin began as a small cray fishing town, and it is still the primary industry here. Tourism is the second. After being here for a collective 3 months or so, I decided it was time to get out on a boat. Fortunately, my friend Scott is a fisherman, one of the biggest and best boats in the bay, so I went to see what is was all about.
3am: wake up- reluctantly
4am: Meet the skipper and the other deckhands down at the jetty
We jump in the dingy, launch into the water and head out to the big boat, and turn on the lights.
The Skipper has plenty of gear to help him find his already dropped pots and the best places to re set them. Some GPS, some bottom scanning and what not. The pots are made of wood, with steel bottoms and weights, and two compartments near the top for the bait (Mackerel at this time of year).
The Skipper pulls up next to the buoys that are marked with his boat name and number, one guy snatches it with a hook on a rope and attaches it to the winch. Then then the pot speeds out of the water onto at bench at the side of the boat. Then the next guy takes out the bait and throws it into the water, this is when the dolphins start following us. Then he pulls out the crays ( or Western Australian Rock Lobsters), and measures them. If they're too small, they go back. If they are pregnant females, they go back.

Sometimes, more than just crayfish appear in the pots. All different kinds of fish can get trapped, as well as eels and octopi. Important fact: the octopi like to eat crays and are therefore the mortal enemy of the cray fisherman. At one point, we pulled up a pot with an octopus. The Skipper ran down the ladder, picked up the occy (as the aussies call them) and bit it's head off! I am told this is a stunt, just to entertain and frighten the observing tourist, but still, ew! Once the head is off, and they stop sucking and sticking to everything, they use them for bait when they go wetlining. Wet lining, is just like cray fishing, but they set down a line with several hooks on it, to catch large fish, like Dhu Fish. They collect them much faster since their catch insn't protected by a pot, and they stay out for days on end until they have enough fish to sell.

6am: As the sun rises over land, the dolphins are looking for breakfast, and know exactly where to find it. They race along the side of the boat as we travel from pot to pot and wait for the bait to be thrown. They'll jump and do tricks if you hold the fish out. Later on, we had a whole family of them following us!


10am: This process takes many many hours. Just as we were pulling up our last pot though, I spotted a shark! You see, dolphins fins swim up and down, but this one was moving laterally. And sure enough, there it was, a bronze whaler. I haven't been swimming much lately.

The day I went out was a short one, since we didn't have to re-bait the pots and re set them. Normally, the boys don't get back until about 3pm. The Government is placing all sorts of new regulations on the industry, fewer boats, fewer pots, shorter season, and they need to take 10 day breaks 3 times during the season (November to June), all in the name of sustainability (which is not a popular topic around here). Since this particular day was the last one before a break, we were hauling all 148 pots on board and then storing them in the shed.
I say 'we' but I didn't do anything but entertain the dolphins and ask far too many questions.

You should be able to follow the picture story by clicking on the photo link to the right, or here