The Quilberry was not that far away from where we lived in Cooladdi, about a kilometre at the most, and it had the best yabbie hole ever. Me, Ray and Niecey discovered it not long after arriving in Cooladdi and we would often go down and catch a few yabbies to eat or use as fishing bait.
We’d take home the bigger yabbies and cook them in a big pot on the stove and the smaller ones would be kept for fishing. However, if we were extra hungry we wouldn’t wait to take them home – we’d light a fire and cook them in the coals – they were so delicious, with a nice smoky flavour. We just loved munching out on them.
When we first started yabbying, we didn’t know exactly how to catch them as we’d never been before. It was Ponchas Pilot who told us what to do. Ponchas was a Punthamarra man from around Quilpie and he was working on the railway line in Cooladdi at the time. ‘Get some string or cotton and tie it to a bit of meat,’ were his instruments and that’s what we did.
Off we’d go, ready to catch a feed of yabbies, but the only problem was, we didn’t have a net to catch them, so we had to use our hands.
‘I’m not doing it,’ screamed Neicey.
And Ray, being the youngest of the three, couldn’t be trusted as he may not be quick enough to grab them, so the job was left up to me to do.
Slowly pulling the cotton up with hands shaking, I could feel the weight of the yabbie, and as it got closer to the surface we could see its tentacles.
‘It’s a big one,’ Ray called out. With that my fears heightened, I started to think to myself, how on earth am I going to do this?
I could now see it’s huge blue green claws just waiting for me. With one shaking hand and holding onto the cotton, I was trying hard to maintain my concentration and not lose it as it would make a good feed for us.
‘Grab it now!’ Niecey called out and I closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
‘I got it! I got it!’ I yelled.
Two of the biggest yabbie claws emerged, with a long tail flicking violently trying to break loose of my vice like grip! I ran up the creek bank and threw him in the waiting bucket.
My poor old heart was pounding so much as I released him and watched as he splashed and wriggled around in the bucket, probably thinking he was back in the water with his family, but there was only one place he was going and that was in the boiling pot at home.
When my wife, Kris, and I lived in Charleville in the mid 1980s we decided to go out to Cooladdi for a drive and have a look around, so we loaded up the work bus with our dear friend, Mavis Murray, and her kids and off we went.
Kris had packed a nice picnic lunch that we sat down and ate under a shady tree on the banks of the Quilberry Creek and finished it off with a beautiful cup of billy tea. Once our food had digested the kids naturally wanted to go exploring up the creek to see what they could find, so we obliged.
As we strolled aimlessly up the creek, suddenly to our overwhelming surprise and out of nowhere we could hear the most unusual noise coming through the stunted mulga trees towards us.
If you can imagine for one moment hearing a noise without actually knowing or seeing the cause of it, it can be quite scary. The kids became frantic and huddled around us as they didn’t have any idea what was happening when we finally discovered what was making the noise.
It was a sun shower passing by and we couldn’t see the clouds from our position. As it fell on the brittle crusty earth it made a very eerie sound that scared the living daylights out of us.
Garry Sonny Martin 