John Fitzpatrick's Great Fishing Story, a True Story, with thanks to Alvey and Abu Garcia Fishing Technology, and Palm Cove Pier, Cairns. Back in the year 2006AD, I went fishing at Palm Cove Pier one afternoon with my Alvey General Purpose Australian designed Fishing reel and rod set up, a fantastic and simple reel, with 3 moving parts...I baited the red suicide hook with a prawn, and tossed it out to sea, into a breeze, at the end of the Pier. I only really go fishing to feel the great connection between man and the Great Ocean, to watch the silver line connecting us...that's just me. I don't really expect to catch anything. No bites on the line, after ten minutes, I reeled the line in only to find a growing weight on it. When I reeled the line up to the top of the pier, I saw that the red hook had caught...a fishing rod...not only just a fishing rod, but an Abu Garcia Fishing Technology rod and reel...the reel, with gold plating over it, the rod, 5 ft high, perfectly taut and flexible...and, by its condition, it was new and had only been in the water for a day. 150 moving parts. Now, this was about 300 years in advance of my stolid Alvey rod and reel and I was very grateful for this gift...so grateful that I didn't go back to the Pier for some time fearing that the owner might come along. I practised here and there in the yard, then, two weeks after finding the Abu I went beach fishing, just north of the nude beach, before you get to Ellis Beach. It's very beautiful there in the late afternoon. The Abu was just sooooo precise...such brilliant technology...you choose your spot in the sea, 20 yards, 30 yards out, and just launch it, and the sinker would drop the line and prawn exactly where you wanted it to go, every time. it was a fine art, indeed. A beautiful machine. Once again, ten minutes passed, and nothing happened, so I placed the rod into a plastic tube rod holder that I had stuck in the beach sand, and walked along the edge of the sea for about 500 yards, meditating on the sound of the little waves on the sand and shells there, and on my rare fortune. On the way back to the Abu, I noticed it jerking in the holder, once, then twice, then three times, then... and then, I started running towards it, but before I could reach it, the whole rod and beautiful reel just, snap, turned the rod holder flat down on the sand, and the rod and reel flew out into the sea. That's my true fishing story.