80. (RARE) GREEN SAWFISH © JH Harding

Green sawfish. 

We were on a diving safari on the New South Wales mid north coast. 

A fisherman in Wooli Bowling Club told our friend, John Bonney of “a five meter-long monster” tangled in his deep water fish trap line a few kilometres north at the Sandon River pinnacle.

Fisherman Keith Knox of Minnewater NSW failed to recognize the catch and was quite frightened of what he saw without a face mask. We helped bring his catch home the next day with our twin 40 hp outboards doing the work his boat could not handle. As fishermen need to do, the ‘monster’ was disposed of – it was a prize catch. The ‘meat’ sent to the fish markets in Sydney, the ‘saw’ retained as a souvenir by the fisherman, the late Keith Knox of Minniewater near Wooli, NSW.

He spoke of the encounter for many years as a great adventure. This is first and only sawfish any of us have seen alive and underwater to this present era. My photographs recently ‘surfaced’ and signed by Valerie posing with my speargun (with multi-barb spearhead suitable for smaller fish). A tongue-in-cheek picture. A satire on ‘sea trophies’.  © JH Harding (1967).

1. © JH Harding (1968)
2. Mondo Sommerso (Italy)  The leading marine and diving magazine in the world 

John Bonny and Janet Kingsbury having photo fun posing.   

First view - hopelessly tangled and still alive.  Today we'd delight in setting it free.  Things were different in '67.

John Bonney and Janet Kingsbury in the shallows back at Minnewater (1967

Janet Kingsbury often compared with Janet Leigh of Hollywood fame.