"It was at Yarrawonga and I caught a 9lb yellowbelly and I loved the place ever since," he says.
In tandem with his father, he became a regular cod chaser at Lake Mulwala and along the bends between Yarrawonga and Cobram.
During his career as a journalist, Wilson (pictured left) regularly reported on Murray issues, including leading a campaign to stop the de-snagging of the river.
This is his final assignment before retirement.
MATTHEW Smithwick (above) has the Murray River in his blood.
The Smithwick family has farmed land at Talmalmo since the 1860s and Smithwick spent the first 18 years of his life on the 1000ha property on the Upper Murray.
He has been a photographer with The Border Mail since 2000.
With the Murray River fighting for its life, The Border Mail has embarked on a special journey. In his farewell to journalism after 45 years in the industry, reporter Peter Wilson is travelling the length of the mighty river, from the Alps to South Australia, to get behind the political hype and to find out what it all means to the people and communities along this iconic stretch of water. He and photographer Matthew Smithwick are travelling by car and by tinny, camping on the banks, sharing the stories of those working, living, playing and relying on this river. Let the journey begin.
FROM its seemingly inconsequential beginning high in the Australian Alps through to its demise at Goolwa in South Australia, the Murray River is a river of incredible beauty; a river of contrasts and moods; a river of abuse and exploitation; a river of life; a river of people.
Photographer Matthew Smithwick and I are on the journey of a lifetime.
This odyssey is taking us from the pristine, fragile beauty of the alpine meadow of Cowombat Flat, just a couple of kilometres from where a series of springs and seeps give birth to our greatest river to its mouth at Goolwa.
Our journey will be by road and boat, to discover the vistas that lie beyond every one of the river's countless bends; to meet and tell the story of people who have lived by and off the river; who have seen their dreams fulfilled and others who have experienced the despair of failure; who have chased the mighty Murray cod; who despair for the river's future.
Over the next three weeks this journey will take us along a river that has sustained Aboriginal people for centuries and for more than 150 years of white settlement it has sustained communities, industries and primary production as Australia has grown and flourished.
We'll see and experience the impact of our insatiable need for water on our iconic river red gums and river wetlands; the degradation of the quality of our greatest river through urban pollution and land exploitation that has resulted in massive land and river salinity problems.
We'll look at the negatives and the positives of the massive dams built on our mighty Murray and many of its tributaries; dams that guarantee surety of supply for the cities and towns the length and breadth of the valley.
We all know our greatest river is on its knees, due to a combination of man's excesses and abuses and the vagaries of Mother Nature.
Yet there is hope for the future; that the damage can be halted and the river slowly returned to something like good health.
Of course, our river can never be restored to what it was before the arrival of Europeans, but the restoration process has started.
After more than 100 years of distrust and abuse by the key states of Victoria, NSW and South Australia, control of our stressed river has finally be signed over to the Federal Government.
Surely this leap of faith must be our last chance to save this icon river.
Action is being taken to restore balance in what we extract from the river; irrigation demands and techniques are being rationalised; salt is being extracted from the river and dry land salinity tackled; snags, a natural and critical part of the river's eco-system are being returned to the river, rather than removed; scientists are working to find ways to control and eradicate pest fish, including the destructive European carp.
But for all the dire predictions and the persistence of what many say is our worst drought in recorded history our Murray River continues to sustain, entertain and amaze.
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