James Brayshaw is a former first-class cricketer turned sports reporter and commentator. He’s a man of many talents, but he admits that fishing ability is not one of them. But Mattie from Matthew Hunt Fishing Charters at Carrum, in Victoria can make even a novice angler look like a gun.
Matt has almost forty years experience catching snapper in Port Phillip Bay. He also has a pretty strong pedigree, as the son of legend TV fisherman Rex Hunt. Rex once told JB, “Jimmy it’s not possible for a man to know less about fishing than you!” But after some “pump and wind” tuition from Matt, JB is onto his first (pretty impressive) Port Phillip Bay snapper.
He and Scotty are fishing in 16 metres of water. Matt usually anchors and drops a float line into a burley trail, with light gear and a pea sinker. Reef fish could pick up the hook anywhere down the water column.
If Matt learnt to fish from his dad, then JB’s cricketing skills were probably inherited too. His father Ian played cricket for WA. “He was a legend in the west to old man, very proud of him. Thelast cricketer to take all 10 wickets in a first class innings 10/44 against Victoria. It was 1967, the year I was born.”
“When I started playing because I was quite young, the first team I played for WA still had Terry Alderman, Kim Hughes, Geoff Marsh, Graeme Wood, Bruce Yardley. I’d spent my childhood in the rooms as a kid and then I turned up to play and all those blokes were still playing.”
As a batsman JB played in Sheffield Shield winning teams for both West Australia and South Australia. He’ll spend his summer co-hosting 7 Cricket and calling key matches ball by ball.
“You’re getting paid to sit in the best seat in the house and watch the best live sport unfold in front of you, so it’s a privileged thing. I never take it for granted.”
