 Ipswich United Sportfishing Club Inc.
Bowenville Bash 2007
Or you thought you knew how to have fun!
This year, as in previous years, the Ipswich United Sportfishing Club held it’s Carp busting weekend at Bowenville halfway between Dalby and Oakey. As usual the weekend went off with plenty of fish caught and released, unfortunately for the Carp caught they weren’t included in the release part of the exercise. Now, we all consider ourselves fairly competent fishermen and women but our efforts were well overshadowed by the efforts of a group of local kids from Bowenville.
It all started when we went up to one of the ring tanks on the property which was drying out and full of oversized Carp trapped in the receding water. After a couple of hours trying to entice the trapped fish onto a line, without success I might add a ute load of kids from town turned up with an oversized tractor tube to have a bit of fun with the fish.
Now, when they arrived there were 10 nice clean country kids looking forward to some good clean fun in the tank so in went the tube and on piled the kids complete with landing nets to catch the elusive Carp. I might add here that none of the adults present would go any where near the water’s edge as the mud looked pretty daunting and we all expected to go up to the arm pits it. The kids on the other hand weren’t going to be put off by a bit of mud, no matter how  much it stank and proceeded to try and net some fish. Well the inevitable had to happen and one of the boys fell off into the water/mud and found out that it was only a couple of feet deep, the water that is and the mud wasn’t a problem so all aboard the tube abandoned ship/tube and started to chase Carp all over the tank. Before long the first fish was landed on the bank, a beauty of 7kg and about a metre long, this started a fishing frenzy and the kids went troppo chasing, tackeling and riding oversized Carp all over the tank.
Did I say at the onset that there were 10 clean kids at the start? Words probably can’t describe just what they looked like after just 10 minutes in the water/mud. Nice clean Sunday go to meeting clothes were transformed into a nice uniform shade of black and I over heard someone saying how they dreaded taking them home to their mothers and what the fallout would be.
The kids couldn’t care less what their clothes looked like and went on clearing carp out of the water. Watching them stalking fish which on average were bigger than the kids was probably one of the funniest things I have witnessed in my life and the pile of Carp on the bank slowly grew. One little bloke was one of the most determined individuals I have ever come across, he  must have brought 20 fish all around 7kg to the bank only to have the fish slap him with it’s tail and make good the escape back into the water. Undeterred, he would go straight back in and tackle another one and wrestle it to the bank. This went on for over half an hour till I showed him how to put a thumb grip on the fish and he finally landed one, the grin on his face couldn’t be wiped off with steel wool and so a monster was born, he soon caught up with the other kids in the numbers he landed.
You couldn’t buy entertainment as good as we had that afternoon, it reminded me of what being a kid is all about, having good clean fun in the out doors. All of these kids have the latest computer games and other such distractions but as one of the mothers told me, when the sun is above the horizon they are nowhere to be seen in the house, they are always out doing something creative and just plain being kids.
The final tally for the afternoon was about 200kg’s of Carp lying on the bank and I have been told that the next afternoon they all went back and were even more successful than the first day.
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when these kids got home to their mothers, there was probably an epidemic of fainting spells all over town when they walked in their respective doors and sales of washing powder probably went through the roof at the local store but they had fun and that’s all that matters
The nice “clean” kids of Bowenville with some of their spoils, a quick photo & back into the fray, they were unstoppable.
Eddy Watson
Ipswich United Sportfishing Club Inc.
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