Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has more than 100 mastheads across Australia. Today's is written by ACM national agriculture writer Chris McLennan.
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Way back when I was a lad, every farm dam had a line of sticks stuck in the mud at the water's edge.
I spent many hours intently watching those weathered sticks, and did every country kid in my part of the world.
I used to daydream about what a visiting alien from outer space might think of that line of sticks.
A mystery to compare with the circle of rocks at Stonehenge perhaps?
Closer inspection would find those sticks would often be placed at the side of the dam which attracted the afternoon shade.
Maybe the aliens would have concluded there was some Aztec style mystic sundial in operation.
Sorry, but I did warn the reader I was a chronic day dreamer.
Us kids could quietly sit in our watchfulness in the cool shade - that solves that particular mystery.
We were lying in wait for yabbies of course, a bush delicacy without peer.
I was prompted to write about yabbies after South Australia moved last week to ban opera house yabby nets.
In my part of the world (the Victorian Mallee) and many others, yabby tails were prized above all else.
And their claws, if big enough.
Those banned nets came after the drop net, a baited net which lay flat in the mud until you pulled up the string attached to a float.
Very labor intensive and wasteful of yabbies.
A very long stick had to be found to lever the net upwards by catching the string at the float.
Before that came the sticks.
String was tied to a chunk of meat at one end with the other fixed to the stick.
The bait was thrown into the water and the hunter sat down to patiently watch for the string to jerk taut, or so they hoped.
Then came the artistry.
A slippery but careful step into the water, about ankle deep.
A slow, but not too slow, winding of the string into the bank.
You had to keep the tension of the string.
And no sudden moves because the yabby would wise up and with a flick of their tail, jet off.
It was worse when you almost had the string into the bank, and you could see the shadow of the yabby in the murk, and bang, lost it.
There were many hits and misses, of course we kids would compete to be best at it.
For the final flourish you would need to scoop the yabby up the bank with a net, or whatever you had.
Real nets were a rarity, in fact I don't remember ever seeing one.
The favourites were a old wooden tennis racquet which had warped in the sun or rain and had been discarded.
What remains of the strings were reinforced with hay band, or string.
The better yabby hunters among us would use their bare hands to scoop them, but that was pretty low percentage.
In the hot weather when we were out for a swim, and we didn't have any bait or net, the toughest of us would reach down into the muddy yabby hole and wait for it grab our fingers and then flick it up the bank.
Only the toughest of us would do that, and usually only when dared.
After the yabby was caught, you would pick it up behind its front claws and deposit it with the others in a bucket or bag.
If you caught enough, say a pot-full, your Mum or Dad would cook them up as a snack.
We were all expert at shelling them, I modestly reckon I've done hundreds of thousands of them myself.
With a pinch of salt and pepper, perhaps a drop or two of vinegar - there was nothing better.
Maybe if we lived near the sea a crayfish tail might top them, but we didn't live near the sea.
Our yabbies had to negotiate a long journey courtesy of the wonderfully engineered Wimmera Mallee channels which filled our dams from big catchments in the Grampians.
Today those wasteful channels have been replaced by pipes.
It's been tough for the native birds, I'm told, but there are still dams, and there's still yabbies.
Country folk take great enjoyment in their natural environment where there is no Uber Eats or Menulog.
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