BLOG: The Dundee Oar-Gee

THE Romans can lay claim to many technological and other advances which include building aqueducts and proper roads, creating the toga and being the original creators of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (yep those full-on gladiatorial contests held down at the Colosseum).

However, for all their advancements, ingenuity and successes, it is interesting that for many the Romans seem remembered only for indulging in lots of parties, consuming copious amounts of fine food and wine, and of course enjoying plenty of bump and grind. Interestingly these are all the same traditions that the current Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has been working very hard to uphold with his infamous Bunga Bunga parties. Rightly or wrongly, the coined term "Roman orgy" seems to define this apparently randy civilisation as much as the pyramids and mummies define the ancient Egyptians.

As a youngster I recall sneaking a late night peak at the BBC's controversial mini series I Claudius. Well that was certainly an eye opener on many fronts. In fact between this and an underage viewing of the R-rated comedy movie Porky's, some of us young adolescents thought we'd learnt a fair bit about the art of romance. But unlike in the movies, dealing with the fairer sex in reality was a much tougher gig. Anyway, they say happiness is a rod in your hand so we young lads tended to focus on what we did best, and fished a lot as well.

Now fast-forward another 30 years. A few weeks back we were working the coastline north of Dundee Beach (south-west of Darwin) when we stumbled across some partying pelagics in the form of big GTs and queenies. I can tell you there was a lot of love being thrown about as our lures were picked up quicker than ladies of the night when there's a shipload of Yankee sailors in town.

During this hot session one of the lures attracting plenty of attention was being swum by skipper Carl Hermiston. Over the past month he's been trialling some Aussie made Oar-Gee lures and the GTs and skinnies were smashing his deep-diving model with plenty of passion. As a result it wasn't long before I was raiding his tackle box, tying one on and getting into the action as well.

Big Queenies also showed a strong liking for Oar-Gee lures. Picture Peter Zeroni

Now I'm the first one to say that chucking a new style lure into a hot bite and getting it smashed is not necessarily a good indicator of its overall fish-catching ability. However, fishing like dating is a confidence game and catching a decent fish on a new lure means you'll back it for another swim on the next trip. Well the good news is that over the past month Carl has been scoring a range of quality fish (including barra) on his Oar-Gee lures, so they obviously do work. And rest assured that these little lures stood up to all the heavy bump and grind being dished out that day ... so much so that we christened our trip the Dundee Oar-Gee!