Fishing

Tarzan has been hunting and gathering and most upset i haven't shared with the world.
We have been to Madang twice in the past few weeks, both times showing friends and family a bit of country side. Madang is a lovely seaside town. We stayed at a little resort called JAis Arben and it was great, ok the food was average, but the accommodation was great! I ordered catch of the day and got a massive calamari hood, un-scored, unsliced in a salty horrible unrecognizable sauce. *spew* I stuck to safe dished after that. ;) Food is not really something people do well in PNG, there is no real cuisine as such, Just food cooked in coconut milk with no fresh herbs and spices except some curry powder, stock and salt sometimes. It encourages me to do more cooking anyway so it's not all bad. When we don't have a takeaway food option....ever someone else cooking is a real treat, even if it is inedible rubber squid coated in a strange sauce.
Now where was i? oh yes. Tarzan, hunting. He wanted to go fishing but the fishing charter boat was busy taking people snorkelling. So Tarzan looked elsewhere. He found a local fisherman who had a banana boat. A tinny type boat with an outboard on the back.




Vincent goes out fishing most days to catch fish to sell to support his family. He uses hand lines and catches all his bait. To catch the first bait he uses hand lines with a plastic bag tied to the hook, or trawls with a small hook with a feather on it. Bait is usually a nice pan sized tuna or similar. Bait i say???? i'll just eat that thanks! Apparently not. So they then put this on a big hook, on the end of a hand line, and trawl. The first trip they got the biggest yellow fin Tuna i have ever seen......
I can't believe they caught it, let alone on a hand line?!



I thought it was a fluke, s when da came over they went out again with Vincent. This time they caught......



A freaking Marlin! My father spent years fishing at Bermagui trying to catch one and never did, now he comes to PNG and hooks one in a banana boat.



And on a HAND line?!




We didn't get to eat the fish, as it was Vincent's livelihood. But second time out, Tarzan asked Vincent if they could catch a few extra 'bait fish" for our esky. They filled it up!

So i cooked up my favorite..... Sesame seared tuna with a wasabi beurre blanc sauce served with a soba noodle salad. YUM!