The River That Wasn’t There Before - Part Two: Into the Fog
Finding Our Rhythm
Back on our boat, the tidy list of assigned roles was already disappearing.
Once the fish began coming, whoever was closest simply did what needed to be done.
By the end of the day, the boat felt different.
We were beginning to learn where each person naturally stood and fished. We were getting used to how one another moved through the limited space. Nets, rods, tackler and cameras began passing between us without the need for a discussion every time.
Rose brought a quiet precision to the crew.
She had fished the Daly during the previous Barra Nationals and had also targeted barramundi through WRFL kayak events in Queensland. When Trish needed help rigging soft plastics for a fishery she did not know, Rose was the right person to sit beside her and work through it.
Rose’s rigs were always neat. Everything sat exactly where it should.
Trish was experienced enough to ask questions without feeling that doing so took anything away from her ability. She listened, tried different approaches and adjusted quickly.
The Daly was new to her.
Fishing under pressure was not.
The tides were one of her biggest adjustments.
The Daly can rise and fall by around six metres, changing not only the depth but the entire appearance of a fishing spot.
We returned to an area we had fished the previous day, and Trish looked around in disbelief.
“Wow.”
It appeared to be a completely different stretch of river.
I pulled out a photograph from the day before, then pointed high towards the left bank.
There was the tree she had accidentally cast into twice.
Same tree. Same location.
Very different river.
That moment summed up the Daly perfectly. You can leave a stretch of bank believing you understand it and return on another tide to find that everything looks unfamiliar again.
Day Two: Into the Fog
By the second morning, the three of us were beginning to work naturally as a crew.
Then the river tested us.
We left at 6 am.
It was fully dark, and heavy fog covered the entire Wooliana stretch. The light from the spotlights disappeared into the white air in front of us. I could barely see, so I relied heavily on the sounder.
But the sounder showed tracks created before the flood along with those of the previous days.
The river beneath us was no longer the same river those tracks had followed.
About halfway through the stretch, the boat struck something submerged.
We never saw it. We suspect it was a tree or log hidden below the surface.
The impact stopped us suddenly and threw all three of us forward.
Nobody was injured.
I shut down the motor and reached for the torch.
One blade of the propeller had snapped clean off.
The tide was moving, boats were still travelling through the fog and we needed to hold our position before we were pushed into rocks or damaged something else.
I deployed the MinnKota to anchor us in place.
A marshal boat came alongside, and Trevor began replacing the prop from his boat while both vessels used their electric motors to stay steady in the current.
The back of my boat had to remain angled so he could reach the prop.
Everything passed between the two boats over open water.
Tools.
Parts.
The replacement propeller.
All I could think was, do not drop anything.
Trish and Rose did not panic. They found equipment, held lights and passed across whatever was needed.
There was no discussion about roles.
There did not need to be.
While we were dealing with our own damage, another boat came racing upriver against the normal direction of traffic and through the no-wash area.
You do not travel that way unless something is seriously wrong.
Information began coming through about a larger incident down the river. Two boats had struck another submerged obstruction.
At that stage, I did not know whether everyone was safe.
I felt sick.
The marshal crew was needed elsewhere, so I pushed them off to respond to the more serious incident.
Kendl and the NSW boat arrived as we were finishing the prop replacement.
By then, daylight was beginning to push through the fog, but my confidence had taken a hit.
It was not simply the broken prop.
It was the realisation that the flood had changed the river so completely that experience and old tracks could only take us so far. We could do everything carefully and still meet something we could not see.
Kendl knew I was rattled.
“You got this, girl.”
She took the lead downriver and stayed in radio contact, checking in until I settled and began trusting myself again.
We lost about an hour.
Then we went fishing.
Six anglers were involved.
One was the boat earlier travelling back under its own power while filling with water.
The other had to be towed and was sitting mostly beneath the surface by the time we saw it being brought back.
These were not inexperienced boaters. They were among the people who knew the Daly best, yet even they had been caught out by what lay below the changed river.
The larger incident was serious, but all anglers were confirmed safe. The submerged obstruction was later located and marked with a buoy.
It would have been easy for the incident to define the week.
It did not.
Continued in Part Three: The Smallest Barra.
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