Tell Your Story - Tennyson Inlet 1950s Fishing Memories

An extract from Dinghy to Daimler and Beyond: A History of Tennyson Inlet and the Archer Family, by Betty Archer (Published 2010)

"Snapper and bream are plentiful, also tarakihi, kahawai, kingfish, butterfish and flounders. There are millions of pilchards, so valuable to the commercial fisherman for bait, and ideal for canning purposes; even more yellow-eyed mullet, commonly called "herrings" and of course there are also the less popular barracouta and members of the shark family.

In deeper waters there is groper or hapuka, for these one must have really good gear, and for any degree of success must know the grounds and the most suitable tides. There are crayfish and scallops in certain areas and everywhere mussels, cockles and pipis.

And occasionally the sea yields some strange monsters even in these secluded waters. The tale is told of an old settler who when living at Canoe Bay swore he had several times seen a peculiar creature with long hair basking on the rocks. Becoming tired of being teased about mermaids, he painstakingly drew what he maintained he had really seen. Investigations proved that the sketch bore a striking resemblance to an uncommon monster found previously only off the coast of China ."