SOMETIMES fishing is in your blood, whether you like it or not.

Such is the case for father and son crayfishers Jim and Fedele Camarda, who operate the boat Neptune III, who revealed that life on the sea wasn’t always in their plans.

“I left school at 13 and the old man shoved me on the boat Cinderella,” Jim says.

“But I never liked fishing as a kid; it was just a family thing – that was all I knew.

“Me and a mate, at 17, wanted to go on a working holiday and I asked my old man, and he said, “No, you get to work.”

And so he stayed.

Tough life

He said it could be a pretty tough life, particularly as he never got weekends and would have to listen to stories from his mates about all the trouble they got into.

“I guess I missed out on a fair bit,” he says.

“It was reasonably good pay, though, but you had to work for it.”

Jim says back when he started, the whole community knew each other and as they walked out to their boats, they’d share a “ciao” and catch up on the gossip.

“You could tell the boats from miles away, because they all had flag, but now everyone’s got cars and they just drive past you and get on their own boat.”

He says he missed the days of pulling up the cray pots by hand, but admits there’s some benefits to the mod cons such as a GPS.

“You used to go by time and depth,” he says of locating their pots set the day before.

“But sometimes if the current was strong you would get there quicker than you expected and you’d overshoot your pots.”

Similarly, a bit of seaweed on the propellor might slow you down.

“You had to try to work out where you had missed them; but I always found them.”

Jim says one of the highlights of the year was the Blessing of the Fleet, which would bring in huge crowds.

“In the old days, 30,000 people would attend; there’d be people all over the groynes, and just about the whole fleet took part.”

“People used to come from all over; there were country people – market gardeners, all from an hour’s drive from Freo.”

Jim says one of his favourite memories was the celebrations at the end of the day.

“After the parade we used to have a keg at St Pat’s hall.

“One time when there was a big crowd, and we only had the one keg, I lifted the spike and only frothy stuff came out, so everyone went home.

“Then I put the spike down and we all kept going,” he laughs.

These days his son Fedele, who’s also a Freo councillor, has taken over as the Neptune’s skipper. He also had his sights elsewhere in early life.

“I used to go out occasionally as a kid, but I can’t say I was hell-bent on being a fisherman,” he says.

“So I went to uni and did teaching.

“I did a summer and then went back to uni, but the next year the spot was still there for me on the boat.

Stronger

“And I guess being a year older and a bit stronger, and being a bit more used to it, I found that I enjoyed it.

“So I finished my degree and did relief when I was not fishing.”

Fedele remembers the uncertainty when quotas were first introduced, which included a ban on taking any other species other than crays.

“I suppose it didn’t have a huge impact because we didn’t rely on the other fish for a living, but it used to be nice to put a few fish on the table, and to give a few away to friends.”

Mr Camarda has been the deputy chair of the Western Rock Lobster Council and says they’d like to work with the state government to give fisherman more certainty.

He says the “Dave Kelly saga” when the former fisheries minister suggested the state government take a 17 per cent commercial stake in the industry gave his colleagues a big scare and convinced them the legislation needs an overhaul.

“The industry is working with the government toward securing better access rights,” he says.

But for now politics is put to the side so the fishermen can enjoy their annual festival -and perhaps a miracle from the Madonna is just around the corner – China has given the strongest indication it may finally lift the ban on Australian rock lobsters.