On occassion, I would put a set line out from the beach. A heavy line with a big hook and a big slab bait. Leave it over night and it usually produces a big fish. A rule of thumb that I have found is valid in NZ also: big hook + big bait = big fish.

Although we don't kill sharks, sometimes the set line would catch one, and it would have drowned or tired itself to death come sunup.

The shark is no good to me as I don't eat it, but my grandfather is from Nuie where they don't have any prohibiton on eating sharks. He showed me what to do with the fins.

Dry the fins as if for soup.

After several days in the sun, pour boiling water on the fin and peel the skin off. The cartilage inside is stringy and a shiny translucent, soft and flexible (when wet). This string is used instead of feathers, tied to a hook for trolling lures. I can say with confidence that for some reason, perhaps the "shine" reflective colour, or the texture to gives it just the right amount of waving motion...these lures are the best for smaller pelagics. Most excellent lures.

I love shark, it's widely available in fish and chip shops as "flake" in Oz and more expensive than the standard "butterfish" offering which is now rumoured to be Vietnamese catfish.

I messed around with set lines when I was a lad but all you got were sting rays, not really edible in our opinion and could be difficult to handle.

I love shark, it's widely available in fish and chip shops as "flake" in Oz and more expensive than the standard "butterfish" offering which is now rumoured to be Vietnamese catfish.

I messed around with set lines when I was a lad but all you got were sting rays, not really edible in our opinion and could be difficult to handle.

Flake, lemon fish, dogfish: shark, shark, shark.

I think stingray are ok eating when they are small. The local Malaysian restaurant has ray sambal on offer which is edible though nothing to write home about.

It's only a type of skate which is quite popular eating.

I think we were spoiled for choice, we had our own cray pots and caught as much "Southern Rock Lobster" as we could eat. The area where our beach shack was was a combination of reefs and shallow sand flats with deeper holes and channels as you went out to the main reef that skirted the Southern Ocean.

The average weekend could produce lobster, mullet, flounder, Aussie salmon, garfish, Tommy Ruff, snapper,whiting, sweep if the weather was good, squid and octopus... which we used for bait not realising it was edible, and rabbits from the scrub behind the shack.

Map (hopefully)

The only time we tried putting out a set line was on a fishing trip to Coral Bay (Ningaloo Reef) some years ago.

Never managed to catch anything, but the baits were cleaned out everytime. Over a couple of nights we increased the size of the hooks on the line ultimately using hooks about the size of a hand. Maybe 14/0 or 16/0 size.

We gave up when even the biggest of our hooks were being straightened out by whatever was taking the baits. We didn't really want to catch whatever was big enough to do that! Probably large Tiger or Great White sharks. (we also had been eyeballed by killer whales in that same area.)

I mentioned earlier the Kioan beverage they call toddy ( bastardised meaning from colonial days, no doubt) or kaleve.

It's a wonderful thing when you know how to get it.

Once you have started it off, a single coconut tree will get you nicely tipsy evry day, or supply you with more than enough sugar for cooking etc.

A very young tree is no good as it will not produce enough flowers. An old tree is too tall. You want to select a tree that is close by, and old enough to be producing alot of flowers, but short enough so that it is not a chore to climb it. You have to climb it twice a day.

Cut steps in the trunk. You do have to treat the tree with rspect and care, so the steps should be minimum depthl just enough to get a small foothold.

I was taught to take a bucket of water up the first time you begin to tap the flower. Give it a good wash.

Choose a flower pod that is full sized, but not yet starting to open. The flower pod is bound tightly with coir twine that you have to make yourself. Bind it starting at the base, and right up to about 10 cm from the point. It has to be tight as the flower will try to break out when it's natural time to blossom comes.

Cut the pointy end of the pod, exposing the cross-section of the immature flower. It is a pale yellow and is crispy rather than woody.

You then have to carrefully bend the flower over (you are working on a flower pod that is pointing upwards from the middle of the tree). Care is need not to split the base as you bend it. Tie the flower into a horizontal position.

The cut end will seep juice or nectar. This is what is collected by means of a single coconut leaf slipped under the binding and bent down vertically. The end of this "funnel" is poked into the mouth of a bottle which has a twine "handle" tied around the neck. The handle is looped over the horizonal flower pod.

The bottle hangs there and collects the drips.

The cut end of the flowers dries up over several hours, so it needs to be shaved every morning and every night to keep the sap/juice/nectar flowing.

If you want to collect the sweet nectar, each time you refresh the cut surface, you take the full bottle off, and replace it with a clean one.

This juice can be drunk straight like that, or boiled and reduced to golden syrup type molasses that will crytalise if left for a while. Sugar for life!

You can also collect the juice over several days and let it brew in a large container. This will produce a sour wine-like brew.

If you want a sweeter alcohol, with less fuss, you leave the collecting bottle hanging. Just decant your collected juice into another bottle that you take down with you.

The collecting bottle forms a yeast inside, and in the tropical heat, will ferment the juice in 8 hours or so. Collecting every morning and every night, you should get 2 litres of sweet fragrant beer....from one flower. You can have 3 flowers working on a single tree....6 litres of fragrant beer per day!

A cut flower, being shaved twice a day, will eventually get too short and too old. A flower may last for 2 months. Of course, there will be no coconuts produced from that tree.

It's not hard work. It takes about 5 or 10 minutes every mornning and evening.

There is some mumbo-jumbo involved, that I, as an arrogant youth with Western education ignored at first.

After several months of failures....no juice, infected juice etc, and being told to do it "properly" (with the mumbo-jumbo), I started to do it as I was taught....and it all came right as described above.

There is something about the fragrance of the beer that makes the drinker's mouth very kissable. It is truly fragrant, and the Kioan women like the kiss of a man that's had a few.

It is highly satisfying to have a "beer tree" in your back yard, and it made life all the more enjoyable.