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15/10/2004: "Green Sawfish .........rare creature of a past era."
We were on a diving safari on the New South Wales north coast. A fisherman in a club told us of "a monster" tangled in his deepwater fish trap line. He failed to recognise the catch and was quite frightened of what he saw without a face mask handy.
We helped bring his catch home the next day with our twin 40 hp outboards doing the work his boat could not handle.
As fishermen need to do, the 'monster' was disposed of - it was a prize catch. The 'meat' sent to the fish markets in Sydney, the 'saw' retained as a souvenier by the fisherman, the late Keith Knox of Minniewater near Wooli, NSW. He spoke of the encounter for many years as a great adventure.
This is first and only sawfish any of us have seen alive and underwater to this present era. The photograph recently 'surfaced' and was signed by the glamourous young model posing with my speargun for this tongue-in-cheek picture.
A satire on 'divers and their sea trophies', extendable to all fishermen, all over the world.
