FISHING 'THE WOORI' in 1897

I grew up making late-summer fishing trips to the Woori Yallock Creek that had very many similarities to this story, only I was doing the trip in about 1967, rather that 1897. It shows how little many things changed in that time.

We used to say we were going "DOWN THE WOORI.' The main difference was, we were not so, or not allowed to be so, adventurous, and we never stayed there overnight.

Lately, I found the first surveyor's maps of the stream where it is consistently called the 'Woori Yallock Riverlet' which it does deserve, being more than a mere creek and about half of a river.

The Woori is more a river than is the River Torrens of Adelaide.




NIGHT’S FISHING IN A VICTORIAN RIVER 1897

- The WOORI YALLOCK AT YELLINGBO -

By “MICAWBER”

[Note: Wilkins Micawber- is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. This has formed the basis for the "Micawber Principle", based upon his observation: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." So it is also a reference to the hopeful poor who nevertheless make every endeavour to live within their means.]

As to who MICAWBER might be in reality, beyond the then conventional pseudonym, nom de plume, whatever, can anyone give me a clue? Pray tell, for I don't know. Obviously the person was local, at least for the summer, with time on their hands.


First Published: “The Lilydale Express” Friday Jan 22 1897


Dear to memory is many a fishing trip to the Woori Yallock, Yarra and Cockatoo Rivers, as typical of which I shall describe one made at the end of last season with a chum.

The time chosen by us boys for those trips was during the months of January and February, when the fish bite best and it is favourable for camping out all night. After making all the necessary arrangements with my friend about baits, provisions, and so forth, we set out on the appointed day for the ten mile scramble through scrub and undergrowth, through heavily timbered country for the most part. Progress trough these obstacles pretty slow, and it is well on in the afternoon by the time we reach our destination, which is the Cockatoo Swamp, a place high up the river, where the stream divides into two smaller creeks which unite again some distance lower down.

The space between these branches, some fifty acres in extent, is partly submerged and thickly covered with tall reeds and water grass, the home of innumerable wildfowl. Here we decide to make camp, and while one of us gathers sufficient firewood to last the night through and unpacks the swags, the other is told off to secure a dozen straight fishing rods – our mode of night fishing being to have some six lines each, set at intervals along the bank in the most promising looking holes. These are visited every half hour and the fish taken off, one line being usually retained as a hand line.

By this time the sun is nearing the horizon and we are anxious not to lose what is the best biting time that we have no thought of tea until we have all the lines set, a good deal depending on the spots chosen. I have scarcely dropped my first line when there is a tug and a rush of the line upstream. I strive and pull up a beautiful blackfish, a pound and a half in weight. For the next hour we have quick sport, and I have caught ten fine blackfish weighing from half a pound to two pounds.

By this time the biting grows slacker and we find we are very hungry indeed, so leaving all the lines set, with the rods stuck firmly in the bank for fear some big fellow should get away with the line, we adjoin to the camp and soon have the billy boiling and make a meal, the extent of which would amaze any individual who had never walked all day through the bush or slept all night in the open air. Tea over, we make a start round the lines, one carrying a bark torch and bait tin while the other pulls up the lines. The first round we make we get three more fine blackfish and two eels.
By this time it is getting on for midnight and we are pretty well tired out, so making our way to the camp fire we have a pannikin of tea, and then lie down with our heads to the butt of a large tree and our feet to the fire. So we lie awake for some time, telling stories of previous adventures while fishing, and of big catches made in the past.

Later on we doze in snatches; there are countless hordes of mosquitoes singing in Z sharp, and one wonders what they can get to exist on in default of odd fishing parties.

There is something in these night camp outs, miles away from any human habitation, that holds an inexpressible charm. To lie and watch the brilliant stars glittering through the black tracery of tree tops overhead; the deep stillness only broken by a hoarse cry chorus of frogs from the swamp, or the cry of some water-fowl up the river, one seems he were brought suddenly face to face with the reality of the existence of God by the evidence of His handiwork.

Towards the morning a pale grey light shows in the east; the air is very chilly, and the undergrowth is drenched with dew. I wake my chum who has just begun to sleep soundly; and after putting on the billy to boil for breakfast, we go to visit out lines, the result being three more eels and a big blackfish. We fish for some time longer as the fish bite well early in the morning, and then back to camp.

I have a refreshing dip in the river while breakfast is getting ready, and after breakfast we examine our take. I have two dozen blackfish and nine eels, and on comparing, find that I have the largest fish, which subsequently weighed, turned the scale at two and a half pounds.

We fish for another hour, by which time the sun has risen pretty high, and at length finding we get no more bites, we pack up, strike camp, and set our faces for a long, hot tramp homeward, where arrived well fagged, with our hair all wild and frowsy and a sleepy look in our eyes, which does not disappear until we have had a good night’s sleep.


Transcription & layout - Wayne David Knoll - 12 March 2008


IN the same paper - "The Lilydale Express" Friday Jan 22 1897

WANTED – Alderney of Jersey COW ;
State prices and other particulars.
Also FOR SALE – RASPBERRY CANES,
Three varieties; STRAWBERRY PLANTS,
Four varieties; lowest prices. Apply to
Joseph McEwin Jun. “Brooklyn,” Wandin

McEwin's daughter Sarah Jane McEwin married Murdoch McAskell, manager of Fernydale Boys Training Farm, Ferndale Road, Wandin South. I believe the McEwen's lived on land retaken for the Crown by the Government (MMBW) to build Silvan Dam