Here is an account of his day out, I thought I would share it. He lives in Australia by the way.

Hey mate, how was your weekend? Bet it wasn’t as bad as mine, as per the
title…I got a shock to the nuts!

Sunday was fishing day, so at 5 am I was up and getting ready…bacon sarni
followed by a double espresso and I was out in the rex before
daylight…turned out it was also foggy..which was nice. I got to blast
up through the hills with no other cars on the road, I even got to have The
Black Spur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Spur ) all to
myself….something that only happens once in a blue moon, when the stars
are in alignment….it was great fun throwing the rex around again. I had
a four wheel drift coming out of one corner, all four wheels trying to grip
the road…I loved it! Got to the river at about 7:30 am. It’s
normally about a 2hr drive, I did it in 1 hr 35mins.

The fog lifted at about 11am and it turned into glorious sunshine, I fished
a few different spots on the river but no success. Then at about 12 I went
to another part of the river, it involves a walk of about 2 – 2.5k’s along
the river…I got to see turtles, a platypus a large water rat, which I
watched go about it’s business for about 5 minutes. I was hoping to see a
nice trout cruising around to cast to, but wasn’t that lucky. I finally
got to the part I intended to fish and waded out into the river. This was
my first trip with my new reel and my new waders, my last pair were full of
holes and unusable and my new ones are swish top of the line ones, so I was
feeling very confident. Anyway, I fished in the river for about half an
hour and then waded across the river, I only had about 2 inches spare
before it was too deep….so was cutting it way too fine. I made it
across and carried on fishing, I caught a trophy trout, but lost it just as
I was about to grab it….I was pretty gutted, but getting it that close
counts imo. I caught another 2 little fish and then decided to make my
way back across the river. I carefully started crossing the river when I
must’ve stepped into a part that was much deeper and I went under! I
started panicking a little, cos if you’re wearing waders and go under in
fast water, the waders can fill up and you’re f*cked…you can get dragged
under and it’s bye bye time. My new waders had a belt though, which
stops water rushing in…so I managed to half swim, half scramble back to
the shallow part. I was now soaked….I decided to try it again on a
different part….same thing happened and I was getting a bit distressed,
trying to think if I’d be stuck on the wrong side of the river….the
nearest bridge I knew of was about 8 k’s away. I moved upstream a bit and
gave it another go and this time it was fine….

My new waders have a water resistant pocket to put keys, wallet, phone etc
in….well mine wasn’t very bloody resistant! My phone and wallet were
soaked! As the sun was out and it was about 30c by now, I thought I’d
take the waders when walking back to dry off….I also made the silly
mistake of trying to take a short cut. Mate, I ended up in these fields
and I have no flapping idea where I was! I started crossing all these
fields and managed to put my foot in a wombat hole, so I fell ass over
tit…I put my hands out to break the fall and landed straight on some
thorny weeds, that bloody hurt. Then I got mobbed by a herd of about 30
cows, cows normally are pretty passive…but when there’s 30 of the
bastards all looking and mooing at you, it gets scary….you start
remembering stories about people mobbed and trampled by cows. So I waved
my waders around and managed to scare them off….they all charged across
this field in a sort of stampede…I imagined a farmer somewhere coming out
with his shottie to shoot the mad english bloke scaring his cows!

I ended up completely losing my way and having to cross some fences….I
knew some fences are electric, but the first one I crossed didn’t look like
it… it was made up of 3 wires…so I touched the top wire and it was
fine…so I squeezed in between the middle and top wire. That was when I
learned what it feels like to be zapped in the nuts! F*CK it hurt! I
said some really choice words, I also got zapped in the hands as I was
pushing the wire down from my crotch…better to get it in the hands than
the nuts! I took a few mins to recover and then kept on walking. The
next field was all overgrown, grass about chest high and PRIME snake
territory….I was walking along stamping my feet trying to make as much
noise as possible, then I saw an Eastern Brown Snake about 20ft up ahead of
me. I froze…these things are deadly and fast, extremely fast…I took a
slow step backwards and thankfully the snake shot off in the other
direction. Wish I’d worn brown underwear on Sunday. After about another
30 mins walking and more cow encounters I could now see the car…only
about 1.5ks to go and 1 more fence. I could see this fence was
electrified, so I rolled under the electric part and was clear of it when I
sat up, for some stupid reason I then leant back a bit and got zapped
across my back….I really swore at that one. Eventually made it back
to the car, got in and had a subdued drive back home.

I had to dry my wallet out and my phone’s still not quite right…the led
flash stays on permanently…even when the battery dies. Still, it’s
insured so I might replace it. I did lose a pair of polaroid fishing
sunnies and broke one of my wading boots (heel fell off). I’ve already
contacted the boot company in America and they’ll send me a replacement
heel for $10 + postage…so not too bad.

im not reading all that!

WTF??

lol! poor sod! Don’t they have gators in aus?

I’m not reading either……..looks like a bit of a fisherman’s tale to me.

That is a good story, but extremely random…..

Pfffft! I just had kidney stones surgically removed. I’m waaaaaaaay harder than that Ozzie puff.

Sounds like Australia to me
Horrible place

So all that and he ‘nearly’ caught a fish?

Fishing is really boring, even in the southern hemisphere.

The
next field was all overgrown, grass about chest high and PRIME snake
territory….I was walking along stamping my feet trying to make as much
noise as possible, then I saw an Eastern Brown Snake about 20ft up ahead of
me

how did he see a snake 20ft away if he was in chest high grass?

I went fishing in the same river (well, my mate did, I was along for the ride) last year (around Lake Eildon). The Black Spur is indeed a blast of a drive. I spent the day listening to kookaburras and sunning myself while drinking cold Coopers chilled in the river. At dusk we took his cousin’s ancient Jimny back to the motel via an off-road route through the hills – saw wallabies and wombats. Then drank our weight in Coopers at a friendly pub. Cracking day out for me. My mate didn’t catch a thing.

Corroded – Your story is a million times better.

Grand day out. If it’s 30deg and glorious, why not just get out of the waders and swim across? Anyway reminds me of the time I took a shortcut across a bay on an island in Washington state to find myself alone, thigh deep in quicksand with no-one in earshot. Eventually emerged on my belly through a random family’s barbecue party at their clifftop house and one of them kindly jetwashed me and gave me a beer. Loved Bill Bryson’s Down Under, basically a catalogue of all the ways to get killed by the wildlife or outdoors in Aus.

I was expecting a crocodile attack.

Disappointed

I was expecting a punchline …. zzzzzz

Having wasted part of my life reading that a few minutes after he posted, I saw some more posts and thought someone would have made some witty remark to at least allow me to get some value for my time.

Now, not only have I wasted even more time reading, I’ve typed this nonsense too…

Is there not a summarised version, some of us have work to do!

Man went fishing, saw a snake, got lost, touched an electric fence or two, got in car and went home.