OSCAR LIKES WHAT HE SEAS

LAST September we ran a photo of Chloe Bauer from Bowen Fishermen’s Seafood with a humungous spanish mackerel she was about to start filleting.

Chloe was pregnant at the time with a baby boy. We said the little boy would grow up to be a champion fisho and fish filleter and that this was preordained in the stars.

Chloe said at the time that someone had told her that if you read books about certain subjects while pregnant it will influence what your unborn baby becomes in later life.

The idea being that if you read Shakespeare every night, as I’m sure you all do, your child might grow up to become an English professor or a playwright.

Conversely if you read books about heavy machinery your child might end up building bulldozers or become a grader driver (Warning: don’t take this too seriously).

Anyway, Chloe did one better than that, she took her unborn child out on the family’s commercial fishing boat. He was hooked, so to speak, while he was till tucked up inside and before he’d even laid eyes on a seagull.

Well, he’s 20 weeks old now and his name is Oscar.

He was two weeks old when he came down with mum for the first time to “help” out filleting fish and unloading prawns from the boats down at the marina.

Mum filleted fish and Oscar watched from the papoose on her back.

He’s quite the veteran now and has helped unload three tonnes of prawn from a trawler as well as fish from commercial boats, all from the papoose.

I asked Chloe if he was paying attention. “He watches and then he dozes off and snores in my ear. He’s chilled about it,” she said.

Oscar hasn’t been out on the high seas yet as the weather hasn’t been the best, but as soon as the ocean settles he’ll be out there on his brand spanking new sea legs, pulling in trout and mackerel like there’s no tomorrow. Remember the name Oscar. He’s going to be a force in fishing.