My Best Summer Days

Wahoo, it’s summer! Well I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is not currently summer. It’s my winter and I’m freezing my butt off. So I’m going to tell you what I would do today — if it was actually summer in my part of the world.

Summer is the glorious time of the year where we have the energy and motivation, not to mention the taste buds, to get on out there and catch our own food. There is nothing more gratifying than catching, cooking your catch and eating it around a campfire, enjoying the taste of accomplishment — not to mention great food, with fantastic mates.

I wake in the early morning and note it’s going to be a 33 degree Celsius day…..oh but I wish, I’ll be lucky if we hit 17 degrees today…….but let’s keep pretending it’s summer!

A great day for foraging through the mangroves. Now I forewarn you, the mangroves will be hot, humid and swarming with sandflies — of which I’m allergic. So I dress in long pants, a long sleeve shirt, closed in shoes and a tonne of insecticide smothered on my face and hands — the only parts of me not covered in clothing.

I stop by the shed and grab a hessian bag, thin rope and my prying hook — which is a length of metal rod curled into a large hook on one end.

I’m set but first I need a partner in crime. This trip is too dangerous for one to complete on their own. I’ve known people to head into the mangroves and never return. There are a whole host of danger in there — plus the sandflies.

I hook up with a friend and off we go. We drive until we get to the mangroves and then head in on foot. We will need to keep our wits about us to ensure we do not surprise a crocodile sun baking on the banks or corner a highly venomous water snake as we are wading through the water.

We are also looking for dinner and tonight we are hankering for mud crabs. That is the ultimate delight we are here for today.

As we head deeper into the mangroves we start to spy holes in the mud banks near the water. These holes are the homes of our dinner.

As we come across a hole, I stop and insert my prying hook, hooked end first, and I tap around until I hear the sound of my hook tapping on crab shell. It’s a very distinct sound so you cannot miss it.

Once I establish there is in fact a crab in the hole, I move my hook around until I’ve got it under the crab and hook it out of the hole. My partner in crime helps me hold the mud crab down before it scuttles away. With the rope I brought with us, I tie the claws to the body so that it cannot nip us when we pick it up.

Tying the crabs claws to its body so they cannot move is very important. I’ve seen someone loose a finger from a mud crab and we also do not want a crab nipping us from inside the hessian bag, which we consequently have slung over our shoulder and trailing down our back. Not a good time to be caught by mud crabs claws.

We continue on through the mangroves until we have enough mud crabs for the entire crew, who’ll be joining us on the beach surrounding a fire tonight.

Once we have our score we head back through the mangroves to the car and back home to leave the tied crabs in a bucket. They can wait a few hours.

Next we head off to the beach, where it is currently low tide. We need to collect a half dozen small sea crabs. These are hiding under the rocks that are currently exposed because the tide is out.

We need to be very vigilant here because there have been times I’ve stuck my hand under a rock and pulled out a venomous stone fish or a just as venomous blue ringed octopus. How I’ve not been bitten or spiked has me beat. Just luck on my side I guess.

Once we have caught enough small sea crabs, we head up onto the wharf. There is one particularly secret spot on the wharf that a few of us know about, where we can catch a fish called a bluebone.

If you’ve never tried eating bluebone, then you’ve been missing out as they are the best eating fish I’ve ever tasted. They are called bluebone because their bones are actually blue and they are of the Parrot fish family.

The best bait to catch bluebone is — you guessed it — crabs, hence why we caught the small crabs before heading to the wharf.

I am not a fan of fishing rods so I always use a hand line and for these fish I need a minimum of a 150 lb line, because these fish are strong little buggers.

After catching a bluebone, it’s back home to clean up and start to prepare the crabs and fish for dinner. Chilli mud crabs for entree and fish pie for mains.

It takes me a couple of hours to prepare the food but it wouldn’t be our favourite summer meal if we weren’t on the beach, sitting around a fire, dishing into chilli mud crabs and bluebone fish pie.

I’m sorry I would give you the recipes of both these dishes, but then I’d have to kill you — even my family don’t have these recipes — the joys of summer and the best summer food all round.

Oh I can but dream as I’m sitting here in three layers of clothing and still I’m freezing!

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