TRACEY BENDINGER | Culture | Contact

A part time retired fisherman sitting at the end of the Betoota Jetty sighs and answers the same question for the 19th time today.

“They biting, mate?” asked a stranger passing Jerry ‘Grey Beard’ Brim.

“Haven’t got a feed yet” Jerry replied.

The Advocate sat down with Jerry to talk through his frustrations.

“People see a fishing rod and can’t resist asking”

“Half the time they’re not even interested in fishing, they just want to make conversation”

“The first couple times are ok, but after 20 people asking it’s just annoying.”

Wanting to press further into whether fishing rods hold some kind of neurological trigger, The Advocate reached out to the CSIRO.

“We actually conducted a study into this 3 years ago” said Lewis Barton, one of the lead researchers at the CSIRO.

“People are compelled to ask, it’s not an evolutionary thing but rather a social expectation”

“Humans try to mimic other humans in a bid to create relationships, so it’s been a bit of a snowball effect from the first time someone asked a man holding a rod if they were biting”

Our reporter had to remove himself from the interview because he too was about to ask Jerry if they were biting.

It’s not yet known if Jerry has caught a feed yet.

More to come.