Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/93

88 were also intended (after having been partially roasted to facilitate the opening of their shells) to form baits for the hooks.

Half an hour devoted to this fun, accompanied by much laughter, and not infrequently by screams of genuine pain caused by some poor lyoor, more clumsy than usual, allowing the nippers of a giant lobster to pinch her finger to the bone, resulted in the collection of sufficient bait for the day's operations.

When the bait had been thus procured the canoes were moved half a mile further up the river to a deep pool, where the water lay comparatively still. The canoes were made fast to the bank there, about ten feet apart, and then the business of the day began in right down earnest.

The lines, each twenty or thirty yards long, to which the baited hooks were attached were carefully coiled up in the hands of the fishermen and dexterously thrown towards the middle of the river, one small coil only being left in each canoe, these coils being left as tell-tales, for the moment the bait was taken, these coils running out immediately denoted the fact, so that a strong, quick pull was only necessary to hook the scaley victim; then a smart haul, hand over hand, soon placed the glistening fish safely in the canoe.

This mode of procedure was carried on for some hours, with more or less success, until, indeed, the sun had gained so high an altitude that the heat became more powerful than pleasing; therefore the fish sought deeper pools, caring little for the baits which up to that time they had so greedily swallowed. Even the most delicate piece of lobster, though plentifully smeared with the irrisistible [sic] kidney fat,