Some Talk The Talk, Some Walk The Walk: Forget The Trash Talk, I Did A Trash Walk

I've been getting into fishing for Australian Bass massively in the past few years. Some of the great things about these animals is that their open fishing season occurs during the spring and summer months, when they are no longer breeding and actively feeding on the surface for insects such as cicadas, moths, beetles, and practically anything that is unlucky enough to hit the surface of the water; they are an aggressive species, which makes for an exciting fight, and they love to inhabit remote, pristine, freshwater areas where you are less likely to run into very many, if any other people. Also, spring and summer is when I prefer to be outside, in the heat and humidity of Australian fluvial environments.

However, one of the saddest things about visiting these places is that, whilst they can be difficult to access for people, there is often evidence of how easily waste can make its way into these beautiful locations. Particularly floating plastic and rubber materials. You're gonna see some below.

It's currently winter here in Australia, and whilst bass season is closed, and Sydney is in our variation of a lockdown, I thought I'd take the opportunity to visit one of my favourite locations and give it a bit of a clean up. So I hiked in, stopping at any of the spots where I could see that plastic was collecting, and filled up my backpack with as much of it as I could.

Here's the final tally:

64 plastic bottles
7 rubber tennis/handballs
1 soccer ball
1 plastic biscuit tray
Other miscellaneous plastic junk

There is still more to be taken out, but I was limited by the space available in my backpack. My plastic bottle collection ended up filling about half of my residential recycling bin. I will definitely return before the opening of bass season to make my future fishing adventures more pleasant. I also found an old baseball, which I won't trash, but keep as some kind of memento of my foray into smashing trash and giving it a thrash for the bass.