Fishermen, good ones at least, never reveal their secrets — especially their most productive locations.
You’d be hard pressed to find a fisherman prepared to unveil the bait they used, their angling style or even the time of day they hit the water in search of “the big catch’’.
Luckily (for the Free Press at least), in Darren Butler’s case, the details of his latest (and greatest) catch were provided by his own promotions team — in the form of son-in-law Tim Nelson.
Tim is married to Darren’s daughter, netball star Holly, and is his father-in-law’s self-proclaimed marketing manager.
Tim was on speed dial when the calendar turned over to December 1 (marking not only a start to summer, but more importantly an opening to cod season) and Darren made his first catch of the season — a 1.04m Murray cod.
An hour later and another photo, taken by Darren’s fishing partner, appeared via text on Tim’s phone. This time Darren was holding a 1.01m cod.
Like any good marketing man, the next call was to the Free Press, unbeknown to Darren.
Both fish, of course, were released under Department of Primary Industries rules. Only fish larger than 55cm can be kept and nothing larger than 75cm is allowed to be removed from the water.
There are even rules for photos, under the photographing fish policy: “photographs may be taken at the immediate location where the fish is landed provided a device to photograph the fish is immediately available”, followed by “a fish must be returned to its natural environment with the least possible injury as quickly as possible after photographs have been taken”.
Darren is no newcomer to fishing, but has never caught a metre long cod — let alone two. He religiously sets out every cod opening in the pursuit of a great start to the season.
With the assistance of a good “net man’’, he landed the one metre long cod and, according to sources, was back out on the water a week later trying to repeat the performance.
A couple of high fives was apparently the extent of celebrations for the big catch.