Jervis Bay – Fishy Tales

Jervis Bay is well known as a favourite fishing location for local and travelling anglers.  the story below comes from an article in the Shoalhaven Telegraph March 1926 titled.

Mr. F. B. Smith,  the popular manager of Katoomba branch of Wood Coffill, Ltd., returned on Friday after having spent his annual holidays at Jervis Bay.  In a chat with the “Blue Mountains Echo” during the week,  he commented upon the good fishing he enjoyed.  “The local fishermen put us on to the best grounds,”  said Mr Smith,  “ and one day we landed four King Fish,  two of which weighed almost 29ib each,  while the other two turned the scale at 25lb and 26lb,  respectively.  This is no ‘fish’ story, either!   At Moona Creek we often caught Schnapper weighing ten or twelve ponds.   The cook at our boarding house fried some of them for us,  and they were the most enjoyable morsels I have ever tasted,  My one regret is that I only had three weeks’ holiday instead of three months”

There are many stories about the size and the  amount of snapper that were caught in and around the bay in the last century.

One of the images in the museum’s collection  - H. Christiansen with snapper caught in Jervis Bay. .

Note: - It’s interesting how we spell the fish name “Snapper” now,  and in papers past it was spelt  “Schnapper”. Meaning: German word for a low priced buy of a normally higher priced article.  It's derived from 'Schnäppchen'.