Yep, had wet maggies on the grass this morning " WTF " look in their beady eyes. Now I was taught " I" before "E" except after c, but look at this " THIER"

My late Uncle Doug (Dads brother), early 1950's at old Fisherman's Dock in Stanley Tas. The couta in box were worth about sixpence a pound I think. Not sure on shark prices.

Craig, your Uncle must have been a good bloke with a name like that.

Couta, is my favourite eating fish. It's hard to get these days though.

Yep, he was a good bloke, but married a toffee sounding shiela. She finally came good in later years. My dad was a commercial fisherman, mainly crayfish, but when times were tough he would go couta fishing. Sometimes I went along in school holidays. There were often 15-20 boats out off Stanley to Rocky Cape. All did big circles. We would tow 4 to six lines behind the boat, each tethered on a bamboo pole around 2.5 metres long, then maybe 3-4 metres of line , at the end a wooden jig with barbless hook. On a good day you couldnt keep up. Lift the pole, over 180 degrees and slam the couta onto the deck and back into the water.
Then someone would have to box them up into the wooden boxes.( A good new box made a great billy cart base ). A good day's catch could be a 100 boxes from memory.

It all came to an end though, fish just disappeared. I think you can still get smaller ones off the breakwater wharf at Stanley. A lot of times they have worms though.

We used to cook the fillets in boiling hot fat, when the bones poked through the ends they were cooked. Very good.