AFTER almost three decades of applying his meticulous skills in service to the Balmoral Angling Club in the position of secretary, local legend, Mick Howman recently made the decision to step down from the role, primarily to “give somebody else a go”.
“After 29 years, I don’t want to get to the stage where you think people are starting to get stale,” he said.
“There’s a few new people coming in into the club and they might have a different influence, so let them go ahead with it.”
Back in the day, Mick had spent 10 years as scout leader but when they folded he said he was “looking for some other community contributions”.
And community contributions was definitely what the club got, with his trademark old school attention to detail being just one of his defining attributes; every club meeting had to be recorded scrupulously by him in the minutes.
“I like to be 100 per cent exact with the minutes,” he said.
“Everything that was said must be written down. That way, no-one protests.
“If you wanted to know what happened at a meeting 29 years ago, I’ll go through the book and I’ll tell you exactly what was said at that meeting.
“That was the old-fashioned way – I mainly did it with pen and paper because I don’t do dot.com.”
But he’s happiest talking about his love for fishing and a healthy desire to set up some ‘reel’ estate “against a dead red gum tree” for a few hours; his favourite place being relatively close by.
“Rocklands waterway, Glendinning area,” he said.
“That’s only five minutes up the road here and I was born here, you see.”
The life experience of Rocklands has meant he’s seen the water level change several times.
“I’ve seen it go bone dry three times,” Mick said.
“One year it was down to three per cent.”
He said although he liked to go to Portland to do some saltwater fishing and he’s “fished trout waters up north” he listed among his greatest club achievements being involved with a response at Rocklands to “an exploding number of noxious European carp devastating the much-sought-after Red Fin population”.
“We sought assistance from Fisheries Victoria to have Rocklands heavily stocked with native fish - mainly Murray cod and Yellowbelly to control the carp,” Mick said.
“The project worked – carp are now very few and far between. But the red fin population is yet to return to its former glory.”
Mick rated the Red Fin as “one of the best things ever brought into Australia” and said many fishermen agree.
“We reckon they’re one of the nicest eating fishes of any freshwater fish,” he said.
Mick said the “half-dozen boat ramps around Rocklands” were also a great win and remarked he’s been privileged to witness recent technical advances such as the stronger braid lines.
“There’s nothing worse than getting a good fish on and having your line break,” he said.
Ultimately fishing was about the challenge of the hunt and the camaraderie with others; so he encouraged people to turn up to the club irrespective of their experience or even their gear, they would always be welcomed.
“Just introduce yourselves,” Mick said.
With a goal to “continue fishing at every opportunity” with children and grandchildren who “are all keen fishermen”, he said he regularly gets asked, ‘when are you taking me fishing, Pa?’