One Teacher – By Vic McCristal
By Vic McCristal
Meunga Creek enters the sea a couple of miles north of Cardwell. It must have been about 1965, and I had walked up the creek on a low tide. Eric Moller had walked downstream to check a crab-pot.
I still recall that day, and the way we clicked without much being said. I was using a baitcaster and lures. Eric must have been impressed with my results, but typically said nothing. He simply arrived on my doorstep a few days later with similar tackle, and rapidly showed natural casting skill.
That part of it came from being a top rifle shot, and the best part of a lifetime spent on boats and in the bush.
He taught me about the creeks and rainforest around Cardwell and Hinchinbrook.
He had one problem. Maybe two. First, at the age of 50 he had been carried out of the bush with severe angina, and he would not stop fishing. Second, he started to lose good lures and occasional good fish, to a point where his invalid pension couldn’t support the cost of commercial lures. I steered him towards making his own.
The Eric Moller Research Dept. at work.
While my own patterns were less than wonderful, Eric quickly started improvements. He had access to white beech and red cedar, both of which he knew from his time on fishing boats. This gave him all that was necessary for entry into lure-making. His workshop was an old corrugated iron shed in his back-yard, where he converted slats of beech and cedar (and sometimes other timbers) into lures.
Most of the Moller lures were made in those years between 1966 and 1975. I was in my writing prime around then, and so was able to fish with Eric pretty often. We were both early risers, fishing the best tides and weather that Hinchinbrook and the creeks around Cardwell had to offer. When weather or tides were bad, Eric would spend more time in his shed and I would turn to the typewriter.
When I was absent on one of my trips interstate, Eric fished with other friends – who were plentiful. The ever-present risk of a fatal angina attack encouraged him to fish in company, though he seldom talked about it.
He mentioned it to me once when we were out in Missionary Bay. I had offered to go home when he seemed to have gone quiet, plainly off colour.
“No” he said. “I know I might drop, any time. If it should happen, just go on fishing. I’ll be the friendliest ghost anyone meets around the mangroves”.
He was generous with his lures, and probably gave away most of those he made. Like many grandparents, he was easy with young fishermen. Teenagers are often a bit awkward in adult company, but that was never the case with Eric. His shed was also home for a flock of homing pigeons, and those times are easy to recall….the pigeons cooing from the hardwood rafters, and Eric guiding a couple of his many visitors towards making their own lures and giving them a couple of his own to use for patterns.
I was able to arrange the supply of quality Eagle-Claw trebles and strong split rings, and it was inevitable that others supported him with timber for bodies, wire for eyelets and sometimes sheet metal for bibs. If I remember correctly, one friend even supplied him with a cutting press for Zincanneal.
His main tools were an old-style hand drill and a well-worn Schrade pocket knife. What helped him most was a keen eye and a close study of the fish he caught. Basic carpentry tools including a metal square and a plane were topped off with a few different grades of emery paper.
He always stayed with some ways of his own. Although the lures were widely accepted, his paintwork was nothing to skite about. He always pointed out that fish were fish, “not bloody art critics,” which is true. My response could have been that fish don’t buy lures – which didn’t really matter to Eric. Most of his lures were simply given away, anyway.
To-day’s generation of lure collectors are well aware that Eric’s lures might turn up anywhere, even interstate, even in distant garage sales. Moller lures has plenty of copies, and I’m never surprised to be asked to identify an original Moller lure. There are many collectors, of course, and finding an original Moller – well, they now run to a startling price, and I doubt if their maker would approve.
I doubt if he ever built a lure that was meant only to catch anything but fish. Eric was certain that his lures worked, and he usually insisted that visitors use his lures in good country. Apart from his fishing skill, he was an astute judge of people, and seldom lost an argument.
On one trip I set out to prove a point. At the time, I had been getting results with surface poppers. I knew that individual skill counted as much as lure style. Eric accepted my challenge, but didn’t seem happy about doing so.
On our return home, I pointed out that our results were about equal.
Eric frowned, and flattened me with his reply. “It proves nothing,” he said. “You can catch fish on just about anything.”
He was right, but so could he – and thousands of other fishermen. His faith in his own lures was more than justified, and I still have one of his specials. These were usually crafted from red cedar, beech or Huon Pine. My own weakness was for lures from the old red cedar stumps, the buttresses of which often carried a fiddleback grain. Mine were varnished with clear epoxy. The agreement was always that his lures were to be fished with. I never told Eric, but I only caught one barra with that special lure before setting it aside.
Some of my collector mates have dozens or even hundreds of Moller lures. I have only one, and I’m keeping it.
End Note:
Early Sportfishers included quite a few who are still alive. In the early 1960’s, we were influenced by US magazines, such as Field and Stream, but line sizes were less important to the Americans – and their fishing was different.
The Australians view favoured treating our own species, and we had hundreds of varieties of fish unknown overseas. ANSA has always been democratic and inclusive. We had no real choice but to set up an independent association. Other organisations covered only limited fishing, we saw wide open fields such as fly fishing and even sidecasts, and empty dams waiting to be stocked with native freshwater species. We’ve changed all that, and it did not take long.
And Queensland may have been at the forefront, but we weren’t alone. One of my early pictures at a meeting of fellow spirits in Manly, Sydney, shows younger versions of Jack Erskine, Clyde Kelton, John Bethune, Vic McCristal, Rod Harrison and Don Brooks and somebody whose name escapes me, and none of us had the remotest idea that our efforts would lead into the kind of future we see here to-night……
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Vic McCristal
Truly one of our fishing pioneers, Vic McCristal is known by most in the fishing industry as a genuine character with a heart as big as a marauding giant trevally. Although most will recall Vic McCristal as a prolific writer from the 60's (and onwards), he still continues now to write and there is still much to be learnt from his writings. Cruise Cast Catch are proud to be the only website with current (copyright) articles written by Vic McCristal.
Vic is a snapshot of Aussie fisherman’s living history.
Still writing and sharing with us…
A true gentleman, whom I did not get to know personally until some 40 years after he started to have agreat influence on my fishing via his wonderful book Great Fishng with Lures !
Keep on pinning lips Vic!
Wayne Real
http://www.realsreels.com
Yes Wayne, Vic is one of the ‘fishing greats’ and it is fantastic to have people such as Vic still writing. We are very excited to have Vic writing for us and trust that many others who use this website also acknowledge that.
That’s pretty exalted company to find myself amongst and I’d have to declare that I’m the least significant of those listed, both as an ANSA founder and a fisherman.
The unidentified member of the group would most likely be Bill Fitch, now retired on the NSW North Coast, but without seeing the pic it could be Hank Newman, Dick Lewers or George Brown – all of whom played essential parts in the early NSW ANSA.
Great to hear that Vic is still writing – long may he continue.
Don Brooks.
Hi Ernie,
Thanks for the feedback. Can’t agree with you more about Vic. He is a real gentleman and a pioneer of our sport.
I will send you an email with the postal address for Vic.
Hope you continue to enjoy the website. Vic usually submits an article each month so be sure to drop back in to read more of his work.