But what about fishing the Murray River?

“Ted Glare was my father-in-law and he was a professional fisherman and he taught me all the tricks of the trade.”

What about these days?

“I would not go down there and throw a line because of the mossies and the flies. They are why I won’t fish.

“Every time I say I might go down and have a fish the wife asks if I am going mad.”

Back to the old truck.

Where did it come from?

“I got this just up the road at Des Deveraux’s,” Trip explained.

How much did it cost?

“Des and I have been mates for years and he gave it to me, more or less. You don’t pay for nothing on the Murray River — you go to your mates and you pick up whatever you can.”

Oh, and by the way, it’s a good life up around Swan Hill.

That was that. Trip had a job to do.

The old Datsun spluttered into life and disappeared down the narrow road that Trip probably built close to 50 years ago.

As for the Bedford, Kane Hazlett was going to look after it.

Little punt clocks up the miles

JUST downstream of Swan Hill a little punt trips back and forth across the Murray River up to 150 times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The Speewa ferry has been operating, in one form or another — three to be precise — since 1914.

Then, as now, the ferry is a vital link to and from Swan Hill for people living across the river in NSW.

Andrew “Butch” McKay has operated the ferry for the past nine years.

It starts at 7am each day, finishes at 9pm four nights, one at 10pm and two at midnight.

“The ferry operates 90 hours a week and four of us work on it,” Mr McKay said.

“I have the contract with the RTA and I employ the other three operators.

“They have to do training and 150 hours of practical experience — six courses plus the NSW Waterways course and on-the-job test.

“It is not an easy task to get a licence.

“It costs me about $10,000 a person to train them up.”

Mr McKay said the original punt was brought to Speewa in 1914 and operated from a site upstream from today’s crossing point.

The existing ferry was the third to service the area and had been in operation for at least 15 years.

It used to carry two cars but was extended in 1992 to increase its capacity to three cars or a total weight of eight tonnes.

“We carry about 100 cars a day,” Mr McKay said.

“We probably average 150 crossings a day, of which 75 are carrying crossings.

“The river is about 70 metres wide at the moment, probably 20 metres wider than it usually is.”

Mr McKay said if people travelled into Swan Hill on the NSW side from the district around the ferry it was a trip of more than 30km, but by using the ferry the trip was just 15km.

Mr McKay said he grew up on his parent’s dairy farm on Tyntynder flats and as a boy he had spent a lot of time on the river and Beveridge Island.

“I used to be down there from daylight to dusk, fishing and swimming.

“It is a better quality river than I can remember, although when I was eight or nine, you could see your toe in the water.

“The fishing is probably better now than ever, although 1956-57 were good years.”

Rivers teem with big fish

DON’T try to tell Andrew Ash the Murray River is in trouble and that there are no Murray cod.

He will tell you the water quality is as good as it has been in 50 years and that the cod fishing has never been better.

He has been fishing the Swan Hill area for at least 50 years and has a weekly local newspaper column and a weekly fishing show on a Melbourne radio station.

“People my age probably have never had better fishing,” Mr Ash said.

“The problem is what are they (cod) going to eat because there are so many of them.

“You can go out for a weekend and catch 60 or 70 cod.”

Mr Ash believes the resurgence of the Murray cod has coincided with the decline in redfin numbers in the river and its tributaries.

“The redfin used to eat the little cod and then European carp destroyed the redfin habitat and they went, and the cod started to breed again.

“The reddies have gone, but with the drought now in its 13th or 14th year, we have had clean water for about 10 years and that means the right habitat is returning for redfin.

“We are starting to get reliable reports from people who have fished for three days and caught say 65 cod, 22 yellowbelly, three carp and two redfin.

“If we keep getting dry years and weed keeps growing the redfin will come back and the natives might start to decline again — probably over a long time, maybe 50 years.”

Mr Ash said many locals preferred to fish elsewhere than the Murray River.

The Edwards River, the Wakool River, the Murrumbidgee River, Billabong Creek and Merren Creek all produced amazing numbers of Murray cod.

There were a lot of small cod in the Edwards, but the river also produced its share of big fish.

The Wakool River was one of best cod fisheries and had a history of producing “absolute thumpers.”

Mr Ash said he used various methods but specialised in trolling and casting Spinnerbait lures.

“Last year three of us caught more than 900 cod on lures and we put them all back.

“My biggest was 48 pounds and 90 per cent of the fish were caught on Spinnerbait lures.”

Mr Ash said the Murray River at Swan Hill had a reputation for producing big cod.

“The past three years, within two days of cod opening and within a few kilometres of Swan Hill, we have had fish of more than 100 pounds (48kg),” he said.

“You can go out casting Spinnerbaits from a log and not be sure of what you are going to get or if you will be pulled off the log.

“I have been nearly pulled in while casting off a log.

“The river has never looked better in my lifetime and native fishing has never been better.”

As lake dried up, so did this couple’s livelihood

LAKE Boga is the face of the drought that has now ravaged south-east Australia for more than 12 years.

What used to be a sparkling lake just 15 minutes from Swan Hill is now a dry, blackened basin littered with the skeletons of thousands of European carp.

The lake has been like this since February last year, the victim of the ever dwindling availability of water.

So, too, are Dale Key and his wife Tracey as well as their combined families.

Dale and Tracey lease the Lake Boga Caravan Park from Swan Hill City Council, and as the water disappeared, so did the lifeblood of their business — bookings.

Mr Key described the dry as an “ecological disaster” and a “big stuff-up.”

“The people responsible for operating the lake and looking after the fish and other wildlife were aware of what was happening,” Mr Key said. “But nothing was being done.”

“Worse still, nothing is being done while the lake is dry.”

“They should be digging a channel in the middle of the lake so that if the level drops again, fish will have water and a refuge, and they should be cleaning up the weeds and grass from the lake, as well as the old fish skeletons, because as soon as the lake fills the skeletons will float and blow into shore in front of the caravan park and create a potential hazard for children and other lake users.”

Mr Key said the lake’s level had been fluctuating since 2003-04.

The level had started to drop in late 2007 and was dry by February.

“I first realised something was dramatically wrong when I saw a couple of fish dead and floating on the surface and the next day there were hundreds of dead fish.

“The fish all boiled and died — it was a sight to see those dead fish with their bright red bellies. All the turtles died as well.

“They should have kept topping up the lake instead of letting it dry up.”

Mr Key said normally Lake Boga was filled with water flowing from Kangaroo Lake and Lake Charm and the water then flowed out into the Little Murray River.

“But for the past couple of years our outlet has actually been our inlet. They pumped water in from the Little Murray.”

Ironically, according to Mr Key, the demise of Lake Mokoan near Benalla will be Lake Boga’s salvation.

“Water from Lake Mokoan is supposed to come here — when Mokoan is decommissioned we will get the water.

“We do not know when that will happen,” Mr Key said.

Mr Key said he, with help from the Lake Boga community, had cleaned a lot of rubbish from the lake bed.