Watch: Laurie and Torren // The Notes In Between
Swellnet: In the clip you talk about making fishing lures. Lures aren't expensive, so why make them?
Laurie Towner: It doesn't have anything to do with cost. It's a part of what I enjoy doing: keeping myself busy, working with my hands.
I just make them as I go or when I need them. I sometimes make some and give them to mates.
This style of making them is, in a sense, new to me. So at the moment it's all just trial and error. Did they work or not?
I'm always looking for new things to do as well. I guess I'm always tinkering on something. The good thing with lures is that it's both creative and helps feed the family.
What about diving? You said you were out all day yesterday diving.
As I'm getting older, I'm really getting more and more addicted to diving. I've always enjoyed it but I find I'm doing it more. Like you said, that's what we did yesterday, just went diving all day and didn't even take one fishing rod.
In a sense it's similar in that you're hunting for a feed?
Exactly. Like many people who live by the coast that eat fish: You don't want to go buy it, you want to catch it yourself. Othrwise it's just another expense to life.
I've always been surrounded by a fishing family, like Baddy [David Treloar] who passed away. He was a professional fisherman and I learned a lot off him, especially when I was at a young age. Like I'm seeing it with my kids now. My little fellow will run home with a flathead...he's running across to the lake, catching flathead on his own on lures and running up with flathead and like, "Dad, can I eat it right now?"
For kids, having a river system, or a little lake, it's great. It's another thing to do amongst the hundred thousand other things kids do in a day.
What about rock fishing? I guess that's an obvious crossover for surfers as you're staring at the waves, getting an idea of the swell rising or falling - things like that.
Yeah, definitely. That's another thing about fishing, you learn things off friends and family - whoever's into it and whoever's done it before you. One of my close mates, he's just a couple years older than me, he lives down the road, he's right into his rock fishing and he's absolutely unbelievable at it. So he basically taught me that form of fishing.
Taught me the basics of it at least. I guess it's just like any other thing that you learn. You get taught some things, then as you go on you begin to figure other things out for yourself.
I was also taught rock fishing, and one of the lessons was that you couldn't talk. You weren't allowed to talk out there. Are you a non-talker when you're out on the rocks?
Ha ha...no way. I sometimes do it as a solo thing to escape and have my own time, but I also do it as a social thing. So talking is a big part of fishing. Gotta talk.
Tell me about going out by yourself solo.
Well, I sometimes love jumping in my boat and doing it on my own. I think it's a bit of a therapeutic thing for me. Like, some mornings I'll get up in the pitch black and I'm going out to sea in the pitch black and there's nothing but phosphorescent flowing through the boat, and the stars are out. Especially when those solo mornings happen in winter when it's cold - the cold is somehow more therapeutic.
So fishing isn't just fishing then?
No. I obviously fish to get food, and if I've got too much fish I don't fish anymore, but it's as much about being out in the surroundings. Like yesterday, we had a massive day diving, all day for stuff all fish, but we were out there with eagle rays and crystal clear water.
Tell us something, Laurie. You're obviously a good fisherman, but what about Torren? Fella can surf, obviously, but was his effort just for the camera?
He's actually good..
Tell the truth.
Ha ha...anyone that can use an Alvey is a good fisherman.
And he can use an Alvey..?
Yep. He was using it fine and he's self-taught on that thing. I never taught him. He already had one and knows what he's doing. So no, he can fish. He knows what he's doing.
Ask him. I think he won like fish of the year up at his Byron fishing club; he caught the biggest Spanish Mackerel. Actually, I'm not sure if it ended up winning for the year, but it was like a 27 kilo Spanish or something, so he knows what he's doing.
OK, this interview might require some fact checking*. Before we go, aside from the handmade fishing lures, you also ride an alaia which I assume is handmade..
Yep.
But what about the other boards in the clip? Also made by you..?
No. One thing I haven't got into much of is board shaping, and I don't know if I ever will. I guess I've always enjoyed learning the process, and I shaped a couple that I rode in the last film [Slow Lane]. I shaped a little twinny that went really well...and in fact it still goes really well.
So were they Dylan's boards then that you were riding?
Yeah, exactly. I'm riding Dyl's boards, and sort of have done my whole life, though occasionally I jump on a mates board here and there. The only type of boards I've ever really shaped are timber boards that I've been I guess riding for the past, I don't know, maybe fifteen years now. Those timber boards basically just keep me in the surf when the surf's average and the wind is south.
* Torren caught the 'Spanish Mackerel of the year', which weighed in at 21 kilos.
Comments
That was sick.
Here for the fishing chat.
Seems like that surfing/fishing crossover used to be way more embedded in the culture back in the day, but curiously, it was never really acknowledged in the surf media.
Maybe the journos just didn't know how to catch a fish and for a goodly while the mags were based in Sydney so it wasn't part of it. I dunno.
+1 on no talking.
+1 on those magic winter nights or pre-dawn mornings where you are out on the ocean or rocks alone. It almost feels sometime like you are floating in space, with the Milky Way so bright above you, shooting stars and the phosphorescent display below you.
Everything feels so calm and yet so poised and urgent as you anticipate that big hit, or try and remain attuned to the ocean swells which you can't see but can sense.
You feel dark shapes looming, is this the set that is going to wash me off?
And when that does happen- when you do end up in the drink in the pitch black, boardies ripped off, bleeding, covered in fish slime, scrambling and swimming for your life to get away from the rock platform, nothing feels as weirdly surreal.
You think someone is going to come and help you, but no one knows, everyone is asleep safe and warm. No-one cares.
It's your very own little survival struggle.
I dunno though, I would have put a tape measure on that little jewie, didn't look 70 to me.
But once in the piss, you know instinctively know where to swim to and that is not always the place you may have got washed off. Surfers are in so much of a better position as far fitness and ability to read the swell and wash on the rocks than our non-surfing counterparts. Same with tackling risky bars, timing sets etc
And ironically, to fish off the rocks around here, even if there's zero swell, you need a life jacket by law. But if it's 10ft, I'm free to walk out there with a board and jump off those same rocks into the swell. farks my mind.
For sure, it was a half hour swim into the keyhole.
If I had a lifejacket on, I'd probably be dead from not being able to swim out from this rock garden I'd been washed into open water.
Careful what you wish for FR. Next time you go to your favourite secret fishing spot some hipster with a home made lure will be there in his needs wetsuit cleaning up
Laurie's surfing is so smooth and relaxed. Just lets the wave do all the work and makes it look effortless. Great lines and then puts the power on display when he wants to.
Great little clip.
One day I'll make some time for fishing.
Craig you won’t have time to breathe let alone fishing shortly
And yeah Laurie has such a sick style. Incredibly smooth in small waves and absolute psycho and worlds best in massive stuff. Amazing
Haha :/
Craig what’s your surf count at for the year (if you count)?
Probably on par with what day we're up to. That'd include days where there were a couple of surfs, and lay days on utterly crap days.
Great effort
Fully.
Someone said yesterday they appreciated Jack Robbos flow.
They should watch Laurie and how quiet he is in between turns.
Just lets the board follow the natural fall-line of the wave with zero twitching or unnecessary movement.
Hey, I never said he was Tom Curren.
:)
But he has improved it a lot.
sick chat, glad you pointed the way to the vid too, haven't been able to get onto needessentials site to see it.. computer just won't do it.
+1s all round steve, if heaven is where your mind takes you in the seconds before you go, i'll be alone on a windless, weedless, moonlit yorkes beach, browns or butlers, 3am, mulloway line taut, anchor sinker holding, catching yellow-eyed mullet on the little rod, fish smoker steaming by my side. looking up at the stars and listening to the rhythmic wave crashes with a tear in my eye.
Looking forward to it tonight on the big tele.
+1 for the cold. I love the middle of winter, pre-dawn when the temps are well in the minus. I kinda feel turbocharged.
Love Alvey Reels.
When I was a little Tacca I made my own Ragoon surf rod and set it up with the short butt and low mount.
My old man was laughing at me saying they are only for Banana Benders.
He was a dyed in the wool Plefuguer Sea master man (overhead reel).
He took me surf fishing to a remote beach in East Gippsland and there was a massive school of Oz Salmon about 80 metres out. (
I was outcasting him by about 10 metres and got a hit of a big chunky Oz Salmon that jumped 3 times.
He didn't get a fish.
He was proud though.
Still have that Alvey reel a 5.5 inch always wanted one of those larger diameter yellow ones.
Are they still made in Australia?
Still Oz made.
Alvey is now owned by the same company that owns FCS.
Great Vid - Alvey Reel fills the Kreel
https://alvey.com.au/pages/about
Get the 6.5 Rocky- great reel.
Secret Qld Beach...
:-]
I inherited my first surf rod from Grandad- a cane job that weighed a ton, and had a 650 alvey on it.
wow, legacy, still got them?
I've had my Alvey 650 for probs 40 odd years.
got the Alvey- rod is long gone.
Low arms and no double pump on the bottom turns, beautiful style to the eye, so functional.
Always enjoy Laurie's films. Slow Lane was unreal as had just completed trip around the bottom of Oz up to NW WA with wife n tin lid so related to whole thing.
Unreal surfer, wish I had half the ability.
Tried to fish a bit , caught some ok ones off Red bluff but really nfi.
Hope he and Torren keep making these films, great to see different style, equipment and approach to waves ...
If we all keep supporting NEEDS.....Scanno willl keep making Movies.
What makes Alvey so good? Look simple, but they're bloody expensive to my not very fishing savvy eyes.
I love spearfishing and freediving but would be shitting myself there.
Alvey 65S = $599!!
The good thing about the Alvey is that it does the casting and reeling thing perfectly well. But the particularly great thing is that you can drop it onto the sand, leave it for half an hour while you have a beer or make sand castles with the kids. Then pick up your Alvey, dip it into the ocean to wash off the sand and cast out and everything works perfectly.