Notes

Jaimey Faccin UOW
Mogo primary, broulee primary, moruya high, bay high, mogo preschool and community. Mogo primary does this every year, UOW has come on board this year with Mogo and Mudji project. Mudji menas “friends” in Dhurga.
Adam Gowen
Todays about gaarn fishin. You can call the article that too. As a collaborative community event between mogo pub UOW and a whole lot of other orgs inc katungal, st johns, broulee SLSC, pre school, couple of highschools, get together having a cultural fishing day down here at broulee. We’ve got some old fullahs down here and we’ll take the boats out hopefully and we’ve got a net we’re gonna drag a net and all pull it in and hopefully get alot of fish, then BBQ for lunch and hopefully just a good day down at the beach.And here comes the tide! It’s a good way to be commuity, to get everyone together and jsut be down here and have a feed too, feed everyone and just really back that corre value of reciprocity in giving everyone a feed and having everyone here be involved in some way. Lots of values that go into fishin, obviously community and food, and those two things are pretty central, and if you can do them together and have a good time while doing it and preserve culture and pass down some ideas about culture and about knowledge and about whats going on in the environment at country, thats a big cultural value that’s worth preserving and worth doing something like this event.
Jason Barby Mogo public.
This is probably about our 8^th fishing cultural trip in my experience as principal at Mogo. It’s a rich cultural event, and the benefit that some of our kids, not just our Aboriginal kids but all of our kids, get out of it is immense. So an experience like this, fishing with elders, MOgo is a predominantly fishing village, fishing with aunts uncles cousiins, grandfathers who are out there today. We want to enormously thatnk UOW for chasing up the grant for us, Moruya SLSC, St Johns, Katungal, Campbell Page, PCYC, theres alot of organisations and people representing different groups, linkages, that helps some of our kids to fulfil their potential. Connection with country an culture is immense, what our kids get out of our day is a real fun day and it brings out community together I know they appreciate it and it’s one of the highlights we have in the year.
Sarah
It’s a good cultural event for the kids, coming back to the land, living off the land. It’s great to see all generations out here, elders, us, the young ones, it’s a good day. I think it’s all about culture for us, for these young ones to get back to the land and live off the land again. Keeping that alive. These days the kids are into mobile phones and social media, lets take them back and live off the land again. Lets do what we did many years ago, lets do that again. These fisherman have a story to tell, and that’s part of our culture, telling stories, history, and coming back here. I’m still finding new beaches, I’ve never been out here. I think this is great, it’s beautiful.
Len and Sam
Well I do like it coz I’m here. We’re shooting the net to catch fish. I’ve come every year. The best part of the day is pulling the fish in, playing games with the little kids.
I’m not at school. It’s our culture. Now we’re not little kids we don’t get in trouble.
Tarlay Nye and Sarah Tighe Mogo Public
We’re going fishing, pulling the nets in. Sarah’s first time, Tarlay’s third. we’re having fun! We get to pull in the nets, it’s the best (Tarlay) playing games and puling in nets is the best (Sarah).
Andrew Nye
Todays a fishing trip for the children, a cultural experience for them, showing them what we do and how we do it, what fish to throw back and what fish to keep, they enjoy it and we enjoy it too. And what fish we catch they get to take home. I’ve been a commercial fisherman since i was 14 (53 years), alwasy the same kind of fishing, beach fishing, a little bit of prawning in the lakes but mostly ion the beaches. It’s been going on for generation after generation and century after century, and we like to continue it because to me this is our resource and we like to go and access our own resource without getting hassled by fisheries and whatever because this is still our country when it boils down to it it’s our land and it was stolen off us and we will continue on doing what we’re doing with or without a fishing license, because we’ve got the right to do it under our native title rights and our cultural rights. The best part of the day is just seeing the kids happy. Some days I’ll sit here all day, from the break of day until. It’s a nice day, we’re down the beach and what more can you ask for? I spent most of my time down the beach, even when I’m not fishing or if I am I’ll fish up in Bermagui, weight the fish, put them down in the cool room, come home and if I have time have a cup of tea, watch a bit of tv and then head back down the beach and sit there for three or four hours on end. Most of the time when I’m sitting down there alone I think alot and I think of my brother and sister and my mum and dad that’s passed away and I feel like they’re sitting right there with me when I’m down the beach and I feel relaxed and comfortable. When my grandparents lived on Mossy Point over there there was only one house and they lived in it. I’d never leave down here , I love it, I was born a fisherman and I’ll die a fisherman, simple as that.

‘Gaarn fishin’ goes swimmingly

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