What are they Ian? Oregon?

What are they Ian? Oregon?

Nope, Mahatta River camp on northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I spent 2 years logging there and then went to work for the government forestry department. Stayed at that job for 38 years.

I think he meant the trees.

I can really see a young Ian Forbes in those photos.

Yeah, I always suspected oregon was a generic term for certain North American softwoods. I seem to remember Douglas Fir being a similar timber as well.

The big tree butts in those photos are Sitka spruce. This is a more recent photo of a big spruce...

Here is another Sitka spruce...

The tree I was falling was a western hemlock. They seldom get larger than that.

Most of our large Douglas fir trees have been cut down and only a few pockets of them remain.

Here is a big Douglas fir...

Our Western Red cedars can have very large bases, but they are seldom very tall. The giant redwoods and Sequoias of California grow wide and tall.

Did you have much hardwood over there?

Australia has very few commercially important native softwoods, mainly hardwoods like Jarrah, mountain ash etc.

Did you have much hardwood over there?

Australia has very few commercially important native softwoods, mainly hardwoods like Jarrah, mountain ash etc.

I live on the west coast of BC where the big trees grow, but we don't get much marketable hardwoods in British Columbia. We get a bit of maple and a fair amount of alder, but alder is softer than most coniferous species. We get a tiny bit of oak and some fruit woods (cherry, apple, pear trees etc) but hardly enough for market. My son is a carpenter-cabinet maker and currently has about 300 board feet of maple and oak planks drying in my basement. We also have a tiny bit of arbutus trees. Arbutus is very similar to the gumwood trees of Australia in that its bark is smooth and looks like it's peeling. But, the arbutus spreads out with many branches and doesn't grow tall.

This is an arbutus spreading over the little ocean bay close to my home. Arbutus only grow in a tiny area of the world near where I live. It is strictly coastal and extends no more than a 100 miles from north to south.

What a great thread, thanks Harcourt

I was recently in the Karri forests in SW Australia.

The Karri is considered the tallest hardwood in the world growing to 90 metres.

There are some monsters over there, I drove through the Jarrah/Karri forests around Manjimup back in the day.

was I ever that young? Or that thin?

There are some monsters over there, I drove through the Jarrah/Karri forests around Manjimup back in the day.

was I ever that young? Or that thin?

Yes mate, you were that young and that thin, weren't we all!

I was never that thin.

Well ok OC, neither was I, I was just trying to make him feel better!

We all put on weight as we age... even if we stay in reasonable shape.

This is what I look like today... at almost 70

This is what I looked like when I was 17

Sucking your tummy in a bit there Ian.

Sucking your tummy in a bit there Ian.

Yah, considering I've been around since Eve and that big snake...

Dear God!

Great thread, going strong! IF, great contributions buddy. (well... except for ^ .... )

There's a particularly obnoxious football writer in my home state who constantly points out he has a pair of jeans he bought when he was 18 and still wears occasionally.

I doubt I'll ever get down to that weight, or want to. I'm nearly 190 cm and in that picture would have been 70 kilo, ridiculous.

My target is about 85 kilo, still 10 to go but I'm doing it easy now.

There's a particularly obnoxious football writer in my home state who constantly points out he has a pair of jeans he bought when he was 18 and still wears occasionally.

I doubt I'll ever get down to that weight, or want to. I'm nearly 190 cm and in that picture would have been 70 kilo, ridiculous.

My target is about 85 kilo, still 10 to go but I'm doing it easy now.

I know what you mean. I was 6 feet tall and 172 pounds when I was 18. After 5 months in Thailand eating thai food I'm usually around 180, but after the past 7 months of my own good cooking in Canada I'm up to 190 pounds. Unfortunately, when you start losing weight it comes off your face and chest first before you start losing it off your tummy and butt.

Before we changed to the metric system in Australia personal weight was measured in stones, a unit of 14 pounds.

The ideal weight for a "6 footer" was said to be 12 stone, about 180 pound.

When I switched from beer to soda water last year I was about 300 pound, or 22 stone.

You're a tall man Sceadu. But 22 stone.... Jeepers! I am sincerely glad that you're shedding that weight now.

I'm 183 cm and 83 kg. But it's sooo easy to creep over 85 kg.

I used to scoff at men that were weight-conscious....but older and wiser I get

PS, Sceadudenga.....I wear Levis jeans mostly....33 cm waist and a tad loose. I was 32 cm when I was 17. Call me obnoxious if you like.

Thank goodness this thread has become bedlamised!

Sucking your tummy in a bit there Ian.

Yah, considering I've been around since Eve and that big snake...

There's some phallic compensation going on here when you substitute a banana leaf for a fig leaf.

can we get back to the topic (for a change, I'm ususally the last to be pedantic, but this is (was) a great thread, (including everybody's contributions).

Please, let's give all the (including bedlamite) doubters a reason to keep this a good one. Even Ian Forbes hsa contributed to this (rather massively...) , which is rare for him.

By the way, it is a fantastic photo, IF.

What was the topic again? Biggest fish? Biggest tree? Biggest phallic symbol?

I'll attempt to get it back on the rails seeing I'm mainly responsible...

The closest I've been to an isolated tropical island is Prince of Wales Island in the Torres Straits. (Muralug).

My mate and I met a couple of locals in the pub on Thursday Island back in the 70s and they invited us out to POW island camping for a few days. Brilliant place; fish just about jumping out of the water, oysters the size of dinner plates waiting to be chipped off the rocks, turtle eggs to be had for the digging... this WAS 45 years ago.

There were feral deer and pigs running loose everywhere but we never did much hunting although I did shoot a shark off the beach.

I guess it's part of Australia most Aussies wouldn't know existed.

Thanks Kayo.

There is a fish called salala. I'm not sure what the Western name is....they're not quite mackeral, not quite yellow tail, from googling it may be long-jawed mackeral....yes, it IS the long jawed mackeral!

They are very tasty eating, excellent raw, and superb bait. I think they may be simmilar to the Thai badoo, from what I have seen of the frozen ones here. They get to be about 30 cms.

They school and break the surface with their backs out of the water when a predator is under them. You will see a patch of rough water on an otherwise smooth sea and it's the salala.

What I used to do, was paddle close, and lob my multi-pronged fish spear into the school. You can't miss. The bamboo handle gives enough bouyancy so the spear and fish is retrieved, the school is still close, and throw the spear again.

One day the salala wer schooling on the surface and I had my fish spear in the canoe. I got close, and threw the spear in a high arc so that it would enter the school vertically. Normally, it would plunge to almost disapearing and then the bamboo end of the spear, still vertical, would float back up, quivering with a salala on the end.

Imagine my suprise when the spear plunged into the sea only about 30 cm and stopped short, thrashed two or three times, and then disapeared into the depths, never to be seen again!

Plainly I had a lucky shot (bad luck in this case) and had speared whatever predatory fish it was that had been hunting the slala.

Fishing spears were great. Very good for walking on the reef at low tide, checking the moka (the stone fence fish trap), or wandering along the tide line at high tide getting mullet.

To make one takes time. First you have to select the handle. Bamboo species is important. The bamboo usually used is a very tough bamboo (bitu vatu in Fijian, which means rock bamboo) that reaches a diameter of about 2.5 cm. Cut it very close to the ground. You want about 2 metres or a bit more.

Then comes the seasoning and straightening.

While it is still green, the bamboo shaft is straightened by hand by heating sections over a fire and rubbing it with a mouthfull of chewed coconut spat onto a rag. I guess the oil penetrates it and also helps the steaming effect for straightening.

If you are good, you can get it reasonably straight...But if you want perfection, I'm talking about a result that you could compare to a snooker cue, then the next step is to hang the shaft with a heavy weight on it. If you have an open fire kitchen, hang it where the smoke rises...the smoke seasons it further. 5 months hanging should do it.

Once you have your seasoned shaft, you need prongs. In Fiji, you can buy prongs that are made by a Norwegian fish hook company...I forget the name (Actually, it may not be Norwegian...but I seem to recall that it was). These are good prongs because they are hard to bend and they have a barb. But they cost money. Usually I would make my own. If it was a spear for catching bait at night, then the shaft did not need alot of treatment as it was a stabbing spear only. I would use the spines from old umbrellas and get about 10 or 12 slim prongs into the shaft. Just for small bait fish; piper and sardines that come around your light at night.

But for a throwing spear for bigger fish, prongs are made from 8 guage fencing wire. I think I described how to straighten and make springy number 8 wire for the futifuti rig. Same thing: a couple of metres of wire, one end wrapped around a tree, the other end around a strong stick, and the wire is pulled and twisted at the same time...eventually it becomes very straight and springy.

Cut your prongs about 30 cm. Sharpen them. With bitu vatu, as it has a thick wall, 5 prongs. With thinner-walled bamboo, you can usually get 6 in the cavity; 5 in a pentagram and one in the middle.

Cut the thick end of your bamboo shaft about 12 cm from the last segment. Taper the end of your bamboo shaft from the segment ring to the end, so that the end is very thin. Split the tapered section a couple of times so that it can expand to accept the prongs. Don't let it split up past the segment end.

Force your prongs into the segment. You then need to bind it by whipping. 22 guage wire or 50 lb fishing line. 20 guage can be used at a pinch, bit it's a bit thick. Less than 22 guage and it will surely snap with the weight you need to apply when whipping.

You need to tie your binding wire to a tree, and pull with your weight and wind, so that it is very tight. Start at the prong end and bind right up past the segment ring, to prevent splitting.

Bend you prongs out in a nice even pentagon....voila! Fishing spear!

Much better than the single prong spears found here and used for flounder.

One of the more pleasurable things about that place was that in the morning, I could get up, walk out the door and grab my spear, 10 metres to the beach....walk up the beach and back with 2 mullet. Clean them...go back into the kitchen, reach out the window for a papaya....and have breakfast.

Further to the long-jawed mackeral......I got a packet of "steamed fish" out of the freezer the other day. The GF uses it to make nam prik bpla too. "Bpla too" look just like slala to me!!

On my many trips back and forth between New Zealand (or Australia) and Canada we often stopped in Fiji, but never more than a night or two, and then just to re-fuel and be on our way. I kept meaning to spend more time in Fiji but never did. I told my wife and my children to be sure and stop in Fiji for at least a week because of its unique tropical island nature. They certainly enjoyed their stay. Thai Islands in the Andaman Sea have a similarity to Fiji, and I certainly recommend to anyone and everyone to take a trip to the Similan Islands.