Pepper Pots

So this Weekend we had the absolute luxury of a blank Saturday stretching in front of us (After soccer of course!).
I had planned a fun afternoon of restoring window frames, but the boys got an idea – and asked if they could go fishing instead.

So I thought! Why not? No harm here right?

WRONG!!

It all started so innocently:
Today was deemed a “Screen free” day and the boys ran outside to make cubby houses, whilst I mowed the lawn.

After mowing the lawn & having a coffee, we checked the Tides:. Bingo! 4pm was low tide. So we had a short time to get moving before the creeks would be empty.

I took Daniel D to go and get some bait – and for $5.50 we got ourselves a packet of frozen prawns. Daniel (who loves all sorts of sensory delights) took great pleasure in sniffing them as we drove home. Lucky for him, they were still frozen.

The boys jumped on scooters, and Felicia came today too, which was a nice surprise! We all parked our bikes on the bridge, and proceeded to cheerfully feed the fish the packet of prawns, tastefully arranged on the end of shiny new hooks.

UNTIL!! we caught something! Surprisingly it was Felicia that caught the first one. A Toadfish! yuk. It wasn’t too badly hooked, so I threw it back.

Then we caught another, and another. All of them were toadfish.

The one Daniel caught was literally “Hook Line & Sinker”. I quickly disposed of this one with my fishing knife, and added it to the fish bag. We knew they were no good to eat – but didn’t realise how dangerous they were.

I had it in the fish bag – ready to take home.
Then a family came along, a Mum & Dad, and teenage boy.

They stopped for a chat, and asked what we’d caught. When I showed them the toady – they went a bit pale, and told us they were really toxic, and I must wash my hands immediately!

So I tossed it back in the river, and washed my hands pretty thoroughly.

I was going to feed it to our cat! That would have been the end of her.
100-200 people die from Puffer Fish poison each year!
Crikey! In fact – a four year old kid died from eating a part of one!

Here’s a link to more information on Toadfish

Tetrodotoxin, the toadfish venom, is one of the most dangerous poisons known to man, up to 100 times as deadly as black widow spider venom.

And one scientist even thought that Tetrodotoxin was used in creating ZOMBIES!! FAR OUT!

As I said before: CRIKEY! We were lucky not to be poisoned, or worse – end up with a zombie cat with a hunger for BRAINS..

Despite all this, we had an awesome time. We made our way back home again, and made sure everyone washed up very thoroughly. I think, even despite the dangers of zombies, certain death, and the bait eating toadfish, we’ll go fishing again in the near future.

Enjoy!
J