Eat & Drink
the
FISH course It’s summer and that means the fish around the south west’s coastline are snapping. Tom de Souza finds out more.
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SUMMER 2018
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margaretriver.com
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estern Australia’s summers are synonymous with seafood. What’s Christmas without crayfish on the table? Or a fresh fillet of fish on the BBQ? Fishing and seafood are an essential component of Western Australia’s diet and culture, and it’s been that way for tens of thousands of years, says Cape Cultural Tours guide and Aboriginal Wardandi custodian Josh Whiteland. Through his Djiljit coastal fishing experience tours, Josh offers visitors the opportunity to experience fishing the way his ancestors have done for millennia, and to understand the stories of his country. “Wadandi people are salt water people, fish
are a big part of our diet. We always fish and forage and hunt to the six traditional seasons. In each season, you target different things.You have to target particular species as well as determine the way you target those fish,” he says. “December and January are Burak season. The grass trees blossom, and that’s an indicator a lot of the large reef fish are in close, and they are spawning. Traditionally you’d only target the medium-sized fish, for sustainability. “Coming into February we move into Bunuru, which is like our second summer. We start to get a lot of humidity around that time. The first rains start coming on and off, and that’s the beginning of the migration of the nyari, the salmon.”