[RML] Thumbnail sketch

Doug Collom (dcollom at powerup.com.au)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 09:26:06 +1100

Success Bruce ! Your little scheme has succeeded in breaking me out of
lurk. Let's hope you don't live to regret it.

Hi RMLers, I'm Doug Collom, current national secretary of ANGFA. I've been
lurking on the list for some time, but like a previous outting lurker said,
have not found the need to jump in until now, even when Rooster has set
himself up for some cheap shots.

Like Adrian Tappin, I am a proud born and bred Queenslander, and have lived
all my life in various parts of it. I started keeping fish sometime in the
early sixties, when I bought a tank off a workmate who was transferred
bush. Sometime in the sixties I became aware that there were some very
interesting native fish in streams all along the East coast, and over the
range to the west.

I also began actively fishing for edible freshwater species around that
time, particularly bass. A few mates and I were lure fishing long before it
became fashionable.

Into the seventies I was quite convinced that I was the only
non-professional fish person who had noticed the native species, and
actually enjoyed keeping them in my tanks. I collected fish from many
areas, and spending considerable time in my job in country areas in the
seventies, splashed around many isolated streams, despite the fact I was
sure the locals all thought I was a bit peculiar.

Sometime in the eighties I went along to an aquarium show in Brisbane, and
got quite a shock to find that there were a few other odd people about, who
appreciated our native fish and had formed this thing called ANGFA. I
joined up and have enjoyed the company and the exchange of information ever
since.

I'm down to under a dozen tanks at the moment, contemplating fitting out a
new fishroom. As well as rainbows I'm interested in what Rob Wager calls
the small brown uninteresting species, and am fascinated by the differences
from stream to stream of many species.

I live with my wife Myra and teenage daughter Pam in a southern suburb of
Brisbane about 40 minutes drive from President Bruce and Treasurer Peter
Surmon ( who is a fellow lurker ), and 20 odd minutes from fellow
south-side ANGFA committee members Barry Meiklejohn and Adrian Tappin.

I have been involved in catering for the ANGFA Queensland meetings for some
years, and have recently foolishly volunteered to do a new position for
ANGFA Qld, Records Officer, looking after habitat surveys and the like. I'm
just discovering what that will involve !

Like others I enjoy the banter of the RML as well as the informative stuff.
Let's hope it keeps going strongly.

Doug Collom.