Now when I say fishing in the Flinders Ranges most people would think you are either crazy or pulling their leg.

But once when visiting a friend on a station and planning to do a little bit of goat hunting when I arrived the fellows had just arrived back at the outstation and said they had just finished fishing. And showed me the fish as well.

Now I looked at them warily as I thought they were joking but they said

"No. We were actually just fishing at a waterhole. We will show tomorrow as we are going back."

So invited to dinner I partook of their fish feast and the next day we drove the 20 or so kilometres to the waterhole. The waterhole was in a large dry river that flows or floods during heavy rains but rarely otherwise. Depending on when the last rain was there are often permanent or semi-permanent waterholes along it where stock and game drink. Once when hunting we learned to our detriment not to trust the map showing waterholes. We planned to hunt to a waterhole and re-stock our water and return one summer. Waterhole dry and a nearby bore marked on the map was capped off as well, so a dry walk back to camp (we had some water left in reserve). Also the expected game was absent due to the missing water so a day wasted.

Anyway back to the story. Recent heavy rains had left some nice sized waterholes. This waterhole was a couple of hundred metres long and four metres or more wide.

Yes there were fish in the water and a cool afternoon was spent fishing under the river gums shade.

Back to the outstation another fish feed and a amzing co-incidence. Right after dinner the phone rang. It was some wildlife guy calling about some sort of fish that had just been discovered in the down river. Fairly rare or something like that.

"Had they been seen on this station?"

"No!" the reply.

Oops.

That was the last Flinders fishing trip and the remaining "stock" was left unmolested. Still they tasted good.