Yabbying

For Mutual last night the bishop taught the Young Men and me how to catch yabbies. To do this, we drove out to Bro Laney's farm, across the border in New South Wales, where he has a small dam for watering his cattle which his sons have introduced yabbies into. (They usually live in rivers.)

A yabby, by the way, is an Australian freshwater lobster, similar to a North American crawdad. And one 'fishes' for them in a similar manner. We each took a length of string, tied a chunk of fresh kidney to the end, and tossed it out into the water. Since the water, in good Australian fashion, was the colour of milk chocolate, we couldn't see when a yabby had taken the bait, but it usually only took two or three minutes. Once there was a bit of resistance at the end of the string, it could be drawn in slowly, luring the yabby close to the shore. A quick swoop with a triangular net then completed the catch.

All that remained was to extricate the entrapped crustacean from the net—a none-too-easy task due to rather vicious and rapidly snapping claws—and toss it into a bucket of water. We caught about 40 of them but kept only about 20, throwing the smaller ones back for a later catch.

Whilst fishing, we got a pot of fresh water boiling on a gas ring next to the dam, and, after rinsing a bit more mud off of our catch, we tossed them in. Once they’d turned orange, it was time to pour the water off and feast. As with lobsters, we ate the tails and claws. The meat was white and sweet and fresh, similar to that of a lobster or prawn. I liked it.

And I liked the simple pleasure of standing on the banks of a muddy dam, surrounded by lowing cattle, breathing in the eucalyptus-scented air, and watching the sun set behind the red hills whilst waiting for some ‘bush tucker’ to take the bait.