Jim Fetzner's trip downunder
Jim's first murray crayfish Jim's first yabby . .	How do you get to go crayfishing in Australia, simple send me an email.... Hi David, How are things going? It has been a little while since I last heard from you. I hope all is going well. It looks like I will be heading downunder to the IAA crayfish meeting in Brisbane at the beginning of August. I am hoping to do some crayfish collecting after the meeting and thought I might try to look you up to see if you might be interested in going out to collect a few crays for a day or two. The meeting is over on Aug 4th, with an after conference tour through southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales ending on the 8th. I’m planning on staying until the 14th, so would have a few days to possibly get out and collect a few things. I basically trying to collect a few individuals (10 individuals per species per site) of as many species as possible, so I’m planning on moving around a lot in the few days that I have. Anyway, if you would like to go after some crays, let me know what your schedule is like and where you would like to meet up. Cheers, Jim
Actually there is no crocodiles where we went craying, the sharks ate them all quite some time back. Jim and I fished the Goulburn River at Seymour for crays and a couple of local dams for yabbies. Translations, crays = spiny murray crayfish = euastacus armatus yabbies= freshwater crayfish = cherax destructor dams = ponds
	This is a bush dam at the memorial for the Australia Light Horse Mounted Infantry. There is alot of history attached to this site and we always treat the area with great respect. Jim is retrieving an opera house net and inside yep; yabbies. Please note, Jim had a collection permit and nets of this specification were allowed. For amatuer use, only open drop nets are allowed in public waters.
My longtime best crayfishing buddy Joe Broes drove a couple of hundred miles to meet Jim. Joe is the best cray fisherman I've ever meet. He can read 'water' and is a bit of a crayfish behavioural expert. He's also a real Ozzie and can tell a story or two. Here he is telling Jim about the big cray he pulled out which put a bend in the river at Albury......
	The next morning, fishing the Goulburn River. One thing about crayfish, they are never guaranteed. But with alot of persistance we finally got a few, enough in fact for Jim's DNA classification work. I never tire of catching crays, and I think Jim was pretty happy too.
At right, not a great photo, but this typical of Joes humour, We use floats on the nets to identify the owners it reads Jim Bob, Pensilvania
We were lucky to catch these crays, it was only through persistance we lured them from their burrows. Notice the mud attached to them. It should be noted that all the crayfish were returned to the water unharmed.
Here Jim is measuring the crayfish and taking samples for DNA analysis. It was all a bit too scientific for me with GPS etc, I'm a good old mud map boy..... .
Jim using the internet, contacting home	Me and Joe, plus a couple of beers and a bottle of wine or two.
Well it was a quick visit from Jim, less than 48 hours, but we acheived a fair bit in that time. Jim was dead tired and had to drive over a 1000 miles back to Brisbane. It was a pleasure to have you here Jim and you know your welcome back.. Cya Mate.
Next week Chris from Germany..... another crayfish crazy is coming..................