Almost a million and a half Australians play cricket, and you’ll see teams training on weeknights over summer in rural and suburban ovals all over the country. Nagambie Cricket Club is in an agricultural region about eighty minutes north of Melbourne’s CBD, and cricket here is played with enthusiasm.
Most of the men who are now playing senior cricket, are locals born and bred, who grew up together playing the game. They’ll finesse their skills two nights a week, and then devote Saturdays to taking on clubs from rival towns. Are they competitive? Well they reckon they have white line fever, as much as the next man, or woman.
But cricket’s not their only sport of choice.
It’s appropriate that the cricket club is known as The Lakers. There are several local waterways that the cricketers like to frequent, but the most obvious is Lake Nagambie, which is right in the middle of town.
It hosts all sorts of water activities, including canoeing, motor boating, and rowing. Victoria’s prestigious “Head of the River” regatta has a home here. There is also camping and tourist park accommodation right on the river bank.
But most weekends, the premier activity on the lake is fishing. Imagine growing up here chasing Murray Cod, Yellow Belly and Red Fin (which is the local name for English, or European Perch). Hundreds of thousands of Murray Cod and Golden Perch have been stocked into Lake Nagambie and Goulburn Weir by Fisheries Victoria.
GoFish Nagambie is Australia’s newest significant fishing competition, and it’s scheduled for April 2019. It‘s promoted as the country’s richest ever native fishing competition with the offer of $500 000 in cash and prizes, including $80 000 for the largest Murray Cod. Competitor boats are capped at 1000, but boat, kayak and land-based anglers will be involved.
