Fishing on Arvos — 25 February 2026

Yes, it is time for some fishing Rocky Edwards from the tackle shop here in the studio. Hello, Rocky. Oh, hello, the wrong microphone there. Hello.

Everyone's everywhere, and it's very confusing because you're here in Darwin, and you've got some crab pot controversy to tell us about. But what he is on the line from the other side of the world in South Africa for the world wreck fishing conference. Hello, Captain Watty. Oh, hello, you've pulled me out of away from my bacon to make breakfast.

Yeah, it's a beautiful day here in the Queenie Beach resort in the East Coast of South Africa. It's good that we could make it work. Yay. What's happening over there?

Is it all just talk, talk, chalk, or is there some fishing to be had as well? Well, there actually is a bit of fishing going on. One of the guys from the Australian delegation this morning called a little South African version of our Black Jewfish, which is that's probably the main sort of poster fish around here. They'd catch them off the surf as well as in the little estuary that we're parked up the side.

So, but it's, um, you know, we're having 45, 15 minute lectures a day from some fairly highly intensive scientific research, but also some really interesting social stuff going on. But I think the real gold happens afterwards around a beer and you can actually sit down with some of these amazing people from around the world and have a chat about what they're doing and if we can sort of help or if they can help us and there's some really great relationships formed within this community. I'm really surprised having never done this sort of stuff before. It's very inspirational, actually.

Fishing and lectures aren't necessarily 2 things you generally put a hand in hand. Who have you been hearing from? Who are the fascinating people who are filling your mind with fishy things? Oh, our keynote speaker yesterday was a lady from Nigeria named Nelly, who had never seen the ocean until she was 2 years into her master's degree as a marine biologist, and now she's uh, that was 20 years ago.

Now she's the world leading um Marlin researcher, and she's done a lot of work in Australia as well, and she had an amazing inspirational talk, especially for the ladies in the room, because every other stat that gets presented around here is that it's, uh, you know, it's 95 or 80% um, participation by men, so probably half of the speakers are women, um, and and a lot of scientific stuff from those girls, that is really interesting in all areas of recreational fishing and the impacts it has around the world. So, obviously, a lot of talk of science and fisheries and research. What about tech? Is there any tech talk?

Yeah, there's a bit of check. There's a few countries that are trying various different things with techs, so they have, in the UU, they've just introduced compulsory reporting of every catch. Every time you go fishing as a wreck, You have to compulsorily report on an app. scientists and social scientists, especially say it just doesn't work.

Um, but there's some really good data coming in from British Columbia from some of their app users and things. If it's done the right way, it seems to be really helpful for science and a big push through this whole community about using existing local knowledge and recreational fishing within their scientific data a lot more. Because, you know, we've got things like um, the Barraclastic and the Top End barracks here in Darwin, that um, that have catch records going back many, many years, you know, so that carries a certain weight, even though it might not fit into any exact It can be really extrapolated out and used in, in useful ways. So, that's pretty good to see, um, that they're actually trying actually listening to the fishes on the ground rather than just the textbooks and the scientific data. What, it sounds like you are going to have so much to tell us about when you're back, because how many days into the conference are you?

We're going into day 3 now and so we've got day 4 tomorrow. So it's 4 days of mind explosion. I think I, at the end of it, I will have attended about 160, 15 minute lectures, as well as, um, you know, evening functions and all the other, um, really interesting in front. Did you say a little while?

Minute, lectures quarter of an hour. Yeah, just... Like speed dating. And they, they, yeah, they really pump them through and there's a few different categories of, of what they, what they talk about and then the best thing is at the end, we're all cooped up here in, in this resort and um, you know, you can get a gin and tonic for $1.60 here. So, um, that's where it really happens is around the bar later on. You can go and chat to these really amazing people and, and um, build relationships and, you know, you exchange phone numbers and help each other from across the outside of the world.

Well, can you exciting? tee up a few people who we could catch up with on the vision segment.