Pink Snapper, Bacon McMuffins, and the Brotherhood of the Sea

There’s something about men, fishing rods, and way-too-early mornings that brings out a primal side we’ve never really shaken off since the stone age. The formal reason? Andrews bucks party fishing trip, but really it’s just a socially acceptable excuse to run around in the dark, grunt at each other, and hope we come home with food and stories.

Saturday started with the kind of alarm that makes you question your life choices. 2:30am. I wasn’t up....I was already awake, lying there stressing that I’d miss my brother-in-law's 3:20 pickup. When he finally rolled in late, I’d been standing outside long enough to feel like Robert Falcon-Scott waiting for rescue from Antarctica. Ronnie joined us on the way, and by 4am the three of us were chewing on bacon McMuffins like it was Michelin star dining. That’s the beauty of 4am fishing trips.....expectations are already on the floor.

We pulled into Fremantle harbour only to find Sardine Wharf empty. The Facebook group lit up with confused blokes double checking maps like we were planning a moon landing. Just as we started wondering if we’d been stitched up, Andrew and his dusty crew arrived, stumbling out of their cars like extras from The Walking Dead. They’d been drinking till midnight, then woke at 3am to drive from Kalamunda. Nothing says “commitment to the groom” like being hungover before sunrise.

Then the boat arrived. Not just a boat, the boat. The Jazz slid out of the darkness, diesel engines rumbling like the opening scene of Jaws. Our skipper greeted us with the kind of energy that felt deeply inappropriate for that time of morning. His safety briefing began with, “I’m the skipper, so no dickheads,” which immediately told us we were in safe hands.

We tore across the water toward Rottnest, and within minutes of dropping lines, chaos erupted. My rod went off first....nearly pulled clean out of my frozen fingers....and the fight was on. Drag screaming, arms burning, heart pounding like I’d been dropped into a UFC ring with a tuna. When I finally hauled it in, up came a 75cm pink snapper.....the biggest I’ve ever caught. The deck exploded. Men were suddenly awake, shouting, swearing, fumbling for their rods like they’d been waiting all their lives for this exact moment.

For the next three hours it was pure bedlam. Lines screamed, rods bent, fish flew over the sides. Snapper, Skippy, a few “questionably small” throwbacks, and enough tangled lines to knit a jumper. One poor bastard spent most of the morning feeding the ocean his stomach contents, unsure whether to blame the swell or the carton of beer the night before. Either way, he soldiered on, can in hand, earning a round of applause for cracking another one mid-spew.

And then came the groom’s moment. Andrew had been cursed all morning, pulling up nothing but baby fish and sympathy looks. We were down to our last drift when his reel screamed like a kettle on full boil. The boat froze. He battled like a man possessed, the sort of effort you only see when pride, reputation, and your entire bucks party are watching. Minutes later, up came the day’s biggest pink snapper. Poetic justice. The boat erupted. Blokes who’d been quiet all morning found their voices, and Andrew stood there glowing like Mufasa presenting Simba.

By the end, the deck was slick with fish and tall tales. We rolled back into Fremantle with eskies bursting and egos inflated. A ten dollar per fish service at Sealanes filleted and bagged the haul, while we headed to Little Creatures for beers and bragging.

And here’s the guts of it....the fish were great, the boat was solid, but what made the day was the brotherhood. Watching grown men turn into little boys again. Laughing till we ached. Living in that weird in between space where time doesn’t matter, where the only thing on your list is “one more drift.”

That’s the secret of trips like this. It’s not about the fish, or the boat, or even the bucks party excuse. It’s about a group of blokes stumbling out of bed at ungodly hours, freezing in the dark, eating fast food with greasy fingers, and then....for a few hours on the ocean....remembering that life doesn’t need much more than mateship, laughter, and the chance to say...

“Yes, I caught the most fish.” (and we all know who that was)