Song of the Black Bream Fisherman

The season’s open for another year,

Got my old van and I’ve got all my gear;

My rusty old truck with the boat slung on top

And I’ll camp once again by the shoreline.

My nets will be wet by the starter’s gun,

Three hundred metres will be my best run.

What with settin’, pullin’ and sortin’ the bream -

Wish I could afford an off-sider.

Oh, Huey, be kind and leave the net clean,

Leave it heavy with tasty black bream;

At the market price, I need all I can get.

How can a bloke earn a crust when there’s weed in the net.

The rules are made by the Gov’ment man,

We all work to the Industry Plan.

With settin’ times, mesh size, and minimum lengths,

They're all s’posed to safeguard our futures.

But the future's not governed by those Red Tapey boys,

Or the Greenies, markets, or Government ploys;

Phosphate and poisons in the catchment streams

Will drive us all to the dole queue.

Now the fishin’s not like it used t’be,

I keep wond’rin’ if there’s a future for me.

Strugglin’ to keep m’nose out of debt -

So p’raps it don’t matter if there’s weed in the net.

Tourists come campin’ with tents and their dogs,

Shielas go topless, the blokes hit the grog.

With their yakkais, their nookies, their party’in on -

Don’t know why they even bother.

They all get snarly when they see m’haul

But forget the years I’ve put into it all.

To outsmart the bream with their canny ways

Is a trick partyin’ don’t teach yer.

Well I’m not educated in a posh-learnin’ style,

But to see that mob makes me smile.

By the seat o’ your pants is the learnin’ you'll get

When you’re tangled and strangled with weed in the net.

Chasin’ the bream in this estuary foam,

Takes me away from my family and home.

When loneliness creeps with the evening chill,

Muscat’s a warmin’ companion.

But I do like the life, and I do like the fish.

The freedom, the graftin’, it's all I could wish.

It's the smell of the open, the spray in yer face,

And it’s breathin’ that makes life worth livin’.

Now I’ve finished the season with a decent pay cheque.

Back home to the missus, a beaut pain in the neck.

For now the good times are the best we’ll have yet

So to hell with the worry and the weed in the net.

Till the season’s open for another year.

I’ll have my old van and I’ll have all my gear.

My rusty old truck with the boat slung on top.

And I’ll camp once again by the shoreline . . . . . . .

Song of the Black Bream Fisherman: P. Gray

This song is about a vanishing breed on the south west coast of Western Australia.  Commercial fishing is a big business but there are only a few spots, such as Stokes Inlet, on the margin where local knowledge can help a man survive.  The ending tune by Bob Rummery came via an accordion loaned by Mark Tandy in Canberra.  It has the title “three and a quarter inch mesh”.