The Murray Cray and the Egret

"To have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all", is I have been told, a line written by Shakespeare many many years ago.  In fairness to the man, the words ring true most of the time.  Plastic or perhaps a fuller description, white plastic containers were not in existence, when he wrote those words and the consequences of the invention of white plastic containers could never have been envisioned by that writer. 

If he could have foreseen the event, I am going to describe to you he may never have considered putting that line down on paper.

Before this tragic circumstance is related, it is necessary to describe a crustation that is unique to the Murray River and some of it's tributaries.  Folk who have never had the privilege of visiting the Murray River in the cooler months of the year may, and I will excuse them for this, never have heard of, let alone seen a Murray Cray.  

All, or most of us at some time will have seen or had fun catching the humble Yabby, from a farm dam.  This creature is known in some localities also as the Fresh Water Crayfish.  If you can accumulate about fifty of these Yabbies, you have a feed, that is if cooked with skill, will make about four people a wonderful wonderful meal.  Now the humble Yabby can with practice and dexterity be handled without too much of a problem.  It is equipped with a couple of decent sized claws that if given the chance will grab hold of anything that threatens them.  Once the Yabby is out of water it's desire to return to where it came from, is of equal importance as to protecting its self with its claws.  To pick it up grasping it across the back is a safe method of manipulating this creature.  

Murray Cray's must be related to the humble Yabby as in essence they are about the same shape and have the same basic attributes such as legs and claws and live in fresh water.  Murray River water though does strange things to the creatures that live in it and some that live on it.  For now we have to concentrate on this one animal as it is indirectly responsible for why sometimes, it is better never to have loved and won, than to have loved and lost.  

Imagine if you will that our delectable Yabby, a little scary to handle for the fainthearted, was used, as a basis for a movie monster.  It does have the claws!  Our scriptwriter applies a mixture of futuristic and medieval thinking.  He takes the Yabby and enlarges it six times.  Now those threatening claws are starting to look menacing.  What's more they can nearly scratch it's own back.  A protective plating of what could be described as rose thorns cover the entire body of the creature, in the scriptwriters mind.  Not only are these spikes sharp, they are also like armour plating that the knights of medieval times used to wear.  Add to this mini monster, a radar system, so those claws are always at the ready snapping.  If threatened our monster makes a hissing  sound. 

You now have a reasonable depiction of the Murray  Cray.  Just before we leave this creature it would be amiss of me not to tell about it's culinary value.  Like most of the people in the know, I would rather not, but that would make the partial refutation of the immortal Baird's writing pointless, because the picture would be incomplete.  Let's skip the actual capturing of the Murray Cray's for the moment and jump to the circumstances where by we have a couple of them in a large container cooking.  Two of them would make a meal for one person and the meal would leave that one person wanting nothing else except maybe a beverage.  Gourmet food would not even be a close description of the delectable white meat that comes from the tail and the claws.  If you had a favourite food other than the Murray  Cray it would be quite a safe bet that you probably had never partaken of this fare. 

We have now established what a Murray River Cray looks like and why we would want to trap them.  Because I would prefer not to detail the art of catching these monsters of the Murray, for fear of being lynched by those who jealously protect this skill, I am going to be my usual self about this part of the process and be vague.  Suffice to say that a bait is placed in a something, then dropped to the bed of the river.  Attached to the something, is a strong line and to the other end of the line is attached a floating device.  

The most popular floating device, attached to one end of the line when ensnaring Murray River Cray's is almost always a large white plastic container.  Without giving to much a way, I can drop a clue here and say, that white is easy to see at night and it also contrasts nicely with the brown water in the day time.

Winter months on the Murray are quite picturesque if you are not an environmentalist.  Where somebody, is craying five to ten of these floating devices will be seen bobbing up and down in close proximity to each other.  All to often one of the Cray catching devices, will become snagged on the river bottom.  A peculiarity of the Cray fishermen, is that they then abandon this snagged Cray catching device, with line and white plastic container still attached.  The reasoning for this discardment of fishing gear is that no one including the fisherman who's lost is, will drop another, in the same spot.   The snag is clearly marked.  In time either the line rots away or the white plastic container sinks but by that time another fishing season is over.

Before we reach the event, also intimated at, in the first paragraph it is important that we take up a little time having a look at the,  Egret.  This is an elegant but haughty bird and as its name implies, mostly white apart from it pale yellow bill and legs.  Like most egrets it has long legs and a spear like beak.  Typically it can be seen wading  along the waters edge catching its prey with a darting beak.  What is not well know about this graceful white wading bird is that generally speaking it has very poor eyesight.  To capture its tucker its eyes are constantly focussed just a beak to two  length in front of it.  If ever you see this magnificent bird flying, you may notice from now on, now that you are aware, that it flies very slowly.  Nature purposely gave it this gentle speed to give it a chance to see where it is going and avoid any  hazards, such as trees.

Although this is a tall bird naturally there is a limit to how deep it can wade.  Most of the time it leads a solitary life.  It falls in love with the White Plastic Containers easily.  Its poor eyesight sees this white floating object out in the river.  Because it's eyes don't focus at that distance it assumes anything white the right size and moving must be another egret. Normally this is not a serious problem because the white floating objects keep being  moved.

When the white floating objects become snagged though the poor bird becomes frustrated at not being able to wade out to what is assumes is another egret, out in the river bobbing up and down.  So in the winter where ever Cray fishing folk ,have many of the white floating objects set out on the river you can usually find a frustrated  Egret pacing up and down the bank.

For the Egret, in the winter time at least, you could say  it is better not to have loved and won, because a white plastic container wont return the same.