Spearfishing

• By tradition, aboriginal men use a multiprong fishing spear called a fizz gig, although women are expected to use a hook and line. For spearfishing, the angler wades into shallow water no deeper than about mid-thigh to be able to maintain balance. Fish are approached with the sun facing the aboriginal fisherman, who raises his spear at a 45-degree angle to reduce glare and stabs into the water just ahead of the fish to adjust aim for water refraction. If he stabbed at the apparent location of the fish, he would miss.
  
  Early fishing spears described during the British Colonial period in the early 1800s were up to 9 feet long, with prongs made from the sharpened bones of kangaroos. Modern spears are usually about 6 feet in length, with razor-sharpened steel tips.
  
  

Fish Traps

• Aboriginals for thousands of years have fished with traps of various construction. Some ancient traps are visible in rivers today, having been formed from stones arranged into rectangular walls on the edge of rivers. At regular intervals the fourth, open end of the wall (where the river flows into the trap) would be sealed temporarily with stone, then the anglers would wade into the walled trap and seize their catch. Later, the fourth wall would be torn down so the next catch could swim into the trap.
  
  Today, water and fishery management regulations prohibit such elaborate and massive trapping techniques. Aborigines now use traps that resemble the head of a lacrosse stick, which is dragged through the water like a net. The indigenous people also use large nets dragged by several individuals across a river or stream, with a team on one side turning with the catch to face the current and wading over to the team on the opposite side, where all men then haul the net from the water.
  
  

Poisons and Toxins

• Now highly regulated, fishing with poisons and toxins has long been an angling technique of the Aborigines. Fish poisons are extracted from several plant species, which are ground and dried until ready for use. The chemical compounds that kill fish vary from plant to plant, but they fall into three broad categories: cyanides, rotenones and saponins. The latter two are preferred because the compounds kill fish but are not sufficiently toxic to hurt people. Fish killed with cyanide poisons have to be retrieved, cleaned and washed immediately to prevent the poisons from being consumed.
  
  The Aborigines release the powdered poison upstream in slow-moving water, then gather downstream with nets to catch the floating fish that succumb to the poison.