It is in fact a fish gaff. The jaws are each about 20 cm. and made out of brass.
The V shaped steel bars are spring steel and snap shut when the saw like bar in the middle is touched.
A long wooden pole is used to position the gaff over a large fish and with a safety rope the fish can be landed onto a high jetty.
Has been in our family for well over 100 years and the design may have originated in Norway or Sweden.
At one time this gaff was used off jetties in the Bribie Island Passage to land big Cod and Jew.
Nice one. I like these puzzles. It gets the grey matter working or is that the white matter. I can't remember.
I tried to do something like this with a quiz about relativity. I thought that I would post a few similar puzzles if it was popular but I was criticized so that was the last.
